Gifts and Recruitment Ethics?                                August 2001

A professional governmental budgeting association wants to market its semi-annual conference. It decides that one way to do that would be to help budget managers to attend a conference and see how beneficial it would be for them and their staffs. So, they offer selected government budget managers a complimentary, non-transferable registration to one of their conferences. Normal registration is $250. Can the budget manager accept the complimentary registration?

Similarly, a professional public administration association wants to market its membership. It decides that one way to do that would be to help public administration officials have a membership and see first-hand the benefits that it would have for them and for other officials/people. So, they offer selected public administrators a complimentary, non-transferable, one-year membership. Normal membership is around $80. Should the public administration official accept the complimentary membership?

In both cases, the people selected for the complimentary gifts are selected because of the  positions that they hold in a public organization. The givers hope that the people selected will  influence others to attend future conferences or to join the association.

Is the issue here whether or not a conference registration or association membership is really a "gift"? Do "gifts" (in the ethical sense) have to accrue to the receiver's personal benefit rather than the receiver's professional benefit?

---submitted by Thad Juszczak (Thad.Juszczak@IRS.GOV)