Dear Liza: Does a person receiving a gift from a sibling in another country have to pay gift tax on that gift in the United States? In the United States, gifts are not considered ordinary income, so you don’t have to report them or pay income tax on the amount you’ve received. (If a US citizen, the person who gave the gift, called the donor, has to report all gifts over $14,000 per person per year, and will have to use up some of their lifetime exclusion from gift and estate tax for gifts over this amount. If they are super generous and give more than the amount excluded, currently $5.43 million, they would have to pay gift tax on those gifts.)

But, if you have received a gift from someone who is not a US citizen, then you may have to report to the IRS, even if you don’t owe gift tax. Here’s the rule, copied from a helpful IRS article:

“You must file Form 3520, Annual Return to Report Transactions with Foreign Trusts and Receipt of Certain Foreign Gifts, if, during the current tax year, you treat the receipt of money or other property above certain amounts as a foreign gift or bequest.  Include on Form 3520:

• Gifts or bequests valued at more than $100,000 from a nonresident alien individual or foreign estate (including foreign persons related to that nonresident alien individual or foreign estate);

or

• Gifts valued at more than $13,258 (adjusted annually for inflation) from foreign corporations or foreign partnerships (including foreign persons related to the foreign corporations or foreign partnerships).”

The IRS may recharacterize certain distributions from foreign partnerships, corporations, or trusts as not gifts, and then subject these to income tax or additional reporting requirements.

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