The holiday season is the time of year when many people are feeling generous and look to show their appreciation to people around them.
Some people look to extend that generosity to their local postal worker to thank them for delivering their mail everyday. VERIFY reader Rod emailed us to ask if postal carriers can legally accept gifts.
United States Postal Service (USPS) carriers are allowed to accept some gifts from customers, although the kinds of gifts they can accept and the value of those gifts are limited.
“Carriers are permitted to accept a gift worth $20 or less from a customer per occasion, such as Christmas,” a USPS webpage about its employee tipping and gift-receiving policy says. “However, cash and cash equivalents, such as checks or gift cards that can be exchanged for cash, must never be accepted in any amount. Furthermore, no employee may accept more than $50 worth of gifts from any one customer in any one calendar year period.”