What assets tax do I have to pay to immigrate to the United States?

What asset tax should I pay for immigrating to the United States?

The United States is a "global tax" country, which adopts the principle of "personal" rather than "territorial". In other words, as long as your status is regarded as an American citizen or permanent resident, your real estate around the world is subject to tax, regardless of whether your real estate is in the United States, China, Hongkong or other countries. Especially friends who immigrate to the United States, if you have a lot of assets, you must carefully understand the inheritance tax in the United States and make a good plan for property inheritance. Now, the planning of property inheritance is not only necessary for multi-millionaires and billionaires, but also for the middle class with assets of one or two million. Because estate planning not only means paying less or no inheritance tax, but also is closely related to taxation and asset allocation.

Let's first understand why the United States should levy inheritance tax.

The purpose of establishing inheritance tax in the United States is to reduce the effortless behavior of "relay" spreading wealth by taxing the inheritance of the rich, aiming at realizing the equality of intergenerational inheritance and preventing the next generation of the rich from winning excessively at the starting line. Moreover, inheritance tax can increase government revenue, thus subsidizing the disadvantaged groups and improving the overall benefits of society.

Then what is inheritance tax?

The federal inheritance tax in the United States is a tax levied on donated property and property inherited after death, which means there are two parts: gift tax and inheritance tax, so it is also called "inheritance tax".

The taxpayer of American inheritance tax and gift tax is the donor (donor), that is, whoever pays the money pays the tax. Moreover, the property donated or inherited by the donee is not regarded as income, and there is no need to pay personal income tax.

So what will happen, will it be taxed?

A) American residents who give or inherit any assets to anyone must pay American inheritance tax and gift tax.

B) Non-US residents donate assets outside the United States to US taxpayers. (Note: When the total amount of overseas gifts received by U.S. tax residents in one year reaches $654.38 million+,they need to declare these gifts to the tax bureau at the same time when filing personal income tax, but this will not increase their tax burden. )

C) Non-US residents donate assets in the United States.

What assets need to be taxed?

The definition of inheritance includes movable and immovable property, tangible and intangible personal property, etc.

For example, cash is a tangible asset, while property rights in company shares, bonds, insurance policies, pensions and intellectual property rights are intangible assets.

The value of intangible assets is generally determined by the current market price. For example, the value of real estate must be determined by the current market price.

In addition to all the property, houses and deposits of the deceased, it also includes the following (including the part that the deceased did not actually enjoy when he died):

Property inherited by the deceased spouse

Transfer other people's property three years before the death of the deceased.

Part of the rights of the deceased transferred to the donee.

The part of the property that the deceased wanted to transfer before his death was terminated.

Insurance money given by the deceased to children (these insurance money is not actually "enjoyed" by the deceased, but must be included in the inheritance)

Property jointly owned by the deceased and others.

The federal estate tax is directly related to the total value of the estate. The more inheritance, the higher the tax rate.

However, not every penny of the whole estate must pay inheritance tax. Deducting debts, funeral expenses, the amount inherited by the spouse, the amount donated to charity and the amount after deducting "tax allowance" from the total value of the estate is a taxable estate. The greater the total taxable estate, the higher the tax rate, and the more taxes the heirs need to pay first.

The "tax exemption" mentioned here refers to the tax exemption amount of the federal government's inheritance tax, which is 5.49 million US dollars in 20 17 years. In other words, everyone has a gift of 5.49 million in his life (before his death). How much will be deducted from your inheritance tax allowance after his death? Of course, if you pay gift tax for the excess every year, it will not affect your estate allowance after death. 20 17 year legacy allowance of 5.49 million. If you donated 1 10,000 before your death, your legacy allowance will still be 4.49 million, because you donated 1 10,000 before your death.

According to the current tax law, the federal inheritance tax rate can reach 40%, and many States also have their own inheritance tax and inheritance tax. The threshold is generally 1 10,000, and the tax rate is about 16%.

How to avoid American inheritance tax reasonably?

Although the United States implements the inheritance tax policy, there are not many people in the United States who actually pay the inheritance tax every year. Lawrence summers, the former US Treasury Secretary, said that the United States inherited 1.2 trillion US dollars every year, while the inheritance tax in 20 12 years only collected1400 million US dollars, which is about 1% of the total estate. According to statistics, the total income of inheritance tax in the United States in the whole twentieth century is only equivalent to the personal income tax in fiscal year 1998.

An important reason why taxes are so low is that the rich know how to avoid taxes. For example, families evade a lot of inheritance tax.

In the United States, the rich usually set up trusts to avoid inheritance tax.

What is the tax avoidance instrument trust mentioned here?

In China, trust is a financial management tool, similar to a pool of funds. People put money into trusts and then make unified investments in order to obtain income. In America, trust is a legal concept. Trust established by professional lawyers is a common tool for Americans to avoid inheritance tax and debt.

Trust is a very useful tool in asset planning. Trust, in the United States, is a bit like the concept of will, but it is more complicated and more powerful than the general will. A trust that conforms to the family wealth planning must be planned with American professional lawyers at the beginning of the planning, what should be put in the trust, what should not be put in the trust, and who is the beneficiary of the trust, all of which need to be planned in advance.