My question actually comes in 2 parts:
1) My parents live abroad and are not US citizens or Green Card holders. They would like to support a down payment for our house, but due to annual gifting limitations in their home country, they will not be able to wire enough for the down payment if they wire the money directly to me. My mom does have a US checking account, so my parents are thinking of wiring the down payment to my mom's US account first, then her transferring the amount to me after it's deposited into her US account.
Is there any limitation to how much a foreigner can deposit into a US account? And I'm assuming that there's no reporting requirements because she doesn't live in the US and doesn't have tax filing obligations here.
2) Assuming the first part goes well and my mom is able to transfer the money to my account, is this gift subject to taxes (it will go over the exclusion amount) if it's coming from a foreigner? I am aware that I will have to report anything over $100k, but am not sure if there are any other requirements there.
Thanks in advance!
US taxpayers never pay tax on gifts received.
US banking security laws require all transactions of more than $10,000 be reported to the treasury department. This is largely to prevent and detect money laundering, and does not necessarily impose a tax burden. If your mother transfers money that she owns from a foreign account to a US account, that would never be taxable in the US because she is just moving her own money around. However, the transaction will be reported routinely. Beware that if she were to make several small transactions under $10,000 each to avoid the reporting requirement, this can constitute a separate crime called “structuring”, even if the ultimate purpose of the transfers is completely legal.