Gifting Guidelines for UA Employees

December 2, 2022

As we are nearing the holidays, in this inaugural Compliance Chat Mary Gower is joined by Andrew Harrington to discuss gifting compliance guidelines. To help make compliance a little more relevant to the everyday, “Compliance Chat” videos are informal conversations where Gower meets with subject matter experts covering frequently asked compliance questions and issues in quick, bite-sized clips. 

This edition, "Gifting Guidelines for UA Employees," addresses scenarios about employees receiving gifts and the best way to handle each situation, including vendors providing an expensive restaurant meal for an employee, an employee winning university apparel, vendor-supplied holiday treats, winning a free registration for a conference, and resources for more information such as the Executive Branch Ethics Act (EBEA). Acceptance of gifts is covered in the EBEA, which serves as UA’s Standard of Ethical Conduct.  While gifts from UA to its employees need not be reported under the EBEA, UA under certain circumstances may have to report the gift value to the IRS as employee income. This applies to any cash or cash equivalent gift regardless of amount, and to non-cash gifts that exceed a de minimis value.  

Interested in trying to win a prize?  Watch this Compliance Chat and answer the question:

Which employees act as the ethics designees for the university?

Email your answer to ua-compliance@alaska.edu.  The 20th correct answer will receive $20* at Amazon.com!

*Gift certificates are taxable.