I plan on buying a house in Taiwan. My parents were nice enough to offer to wire me a large sum of money to help with the initial down payment. I was wondering if anyone has ever wired over a million NT into Taiwan. Will there be any difficulties? Will the money be taxed? Any helpful responses will be appreciated.
If they are wiring out of the USA, any amount over 10,000 USD and the bank will be obligated to report the account holder information to the authority. Could be used later for tax audits.
Unless they do TT and large wires frequently could be more hassle than its worth.
Would recommend breaking transfer to under 10,000 USD at a time.
My parents will be TT the money from Canada. Not sure if that makes any difference. Question is, would it look suspicious if they TT $10,000CDN several times within a short time period. Will I also get taxed in Taiwan when the money comes in?
As far as I know, and I’m no expert, money sent from overseas is not usually taxable.
At worst, someone will call and ask you about it, and you reply that you’re buying a house with the help of a loan from your parents, and that should be that. It’s not “income”, it’s a loan, right?
Which bank are you using? If you do it through Citibank, HSBC, ABN, etc they should be able to advise you as they do this sort of thing all the time.
Better change your signature line until you get the cash. Don’t want to give the game away.
No, the money’s not for a Ducati. It really is for a house., and yes it’s a loan, not income. I’m using China Trust, use them for wiring out money, and it was very hassle free. I don’t see why it should be any different for money coming in. I’m just worried that the Taiwan government will pull something our of their ass, and tax me or something.
Chinatrust, whatever their other qualities, are probably the least well-informed bank when it comes to the law and foreigners. An international bank will probably have more idea of whether there’s anything you should do in advance to cover your arse.
So do you think I should open a HSBC bank account just for this transaction?
When we bought our house here I wired a USD30K lump sum to my wifes account, she didn’t have a problem or any queries about tax. We also in-frequently TT USD10~20K and have not been troubled. Each time if the bank calls usually just need to advise them what the funds are for.
Funny story, one of my friends when to his local bank and asked of there were any limitations on receiving funds, bank replied no, he even went as far as asking so a million bucks is OK. Still no problem. Finally a US company he worked for transferred USD1mil into his account… he later got a call from the bank all flustered… saying they could not accept it. So it had to be returned. 
You won’t have trouble receiving that much; if you do, there’s something wrong with your bank. Tax isn’t an issue, because it will be clear that it is a direct transfer, not income.
Thank you for all the reassuring replies. Just a few more questions if you guys don’t mind. Can you guys tell me which banks you have dealt with locally. China Trust and First Bank the places I deal with don’t seem very competent on any matters I have asked them in the past. Also, were their any service charges like currency exchange? Cause when I TT money to my online stock broker, the middleman bank in the US always charges me a exchange rate fee before it gets to my account. Do the banks do that here when the money arrives? Two more questions. Usually how long does it take before I could expect the money to be deposited into my bank account in Taiwan after being wired from Canada? Should I open a foreign currency account for the TT, or just have my folks TT it directly to my NT savings account? Thanks again for all the help guys.
My experience is that a China Trust overseas wire transfer to the China Trust (ROC) account is the fastest. 1 buisness day or less if done early enough. There will be a fee on both accounts. I think it was 20 USD to initiate the wire and the 100-200 NT fee on the target account.
Don’t know about Canada and what their upper limits are in reporting to Canadian authorities. Basically, you don’t want the gov’t to have more information about you, if your parents ever did get audited in the next 5-10 years.
On the ROC side there are very little problems, since China Trust is one of the largest banks on the island and ROC business people move money there in pretty large sums. So it is not like your dealing with a McBank who has never seen 1 million USD moving around. Not to mention tax enforcement are pretty lax in Taiwan compare to the west.
You don’t have to open a special account; why should you? The house you will purchase will be in TWD. The only reason to consider opening a special account is if you wanted to keep the money in CDN$ and speculate on the exchange rate between the time of the transfer and when you actually need the money. Your timing is great, actually; the Canadian dollar is doing very well against the NT at the moment, best it’s ever been: finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1: … =undefined
About fees, you’ll probably get stung worse by your Canadian bank than you will from your bank here. But, as mentioned, they charge flat fees…I seem to recall about CDN$40 or so from RBC and then something like NT$200 on my account here.
Ed: Oh, and maximum it should take is 2 days for the money to clear; depends if there is another bank acting between your parents Canadian bank and your one in TW. You can ask your bank to notify you with a call when it arrives. They probably will on their own, if you haven’t received that kind of amount to your account before.
Well, I went into Megabank to open a Canadian Currency account today. I am thinking of keep the money in CDN funds until I finally buy the house, since the CDn dollar is still moving up. BUT, I was told that they charge a handling fee of $24NT for every $100CDN I put into that account. Is this right? So for every $10,000NT I put into that CDN fund account they will charge me $2,400NT right off the bat. Sounds kinda high to me.
No, from what you have said above, for every CDN$100 (about NT$3000), they will charge you NT$24. By this logic, for every NT$10,000 you put in, they would charge you approx. NT$80. Therefore, say your total transaction is NT$1,000,000, you would end up paying around NT$8,000 in fees.
If you are worried about this, shop around at other banks and find out if they do the same/something similar.
Btw, the CDN$ has been doing great, but be aware that it could go down, as well; forex is a pretty volatile game with some very real risks. Investor beware.
If you wire in more then TW$500k at a time your bank will need to fill out a form every time stating what the money is for. When the money comes in they will call you to come in to ‘claim’ at which time they will ask the purpose and fill out the form for you. As long as it is not for a business purpose, you shouldn’t have any tax issues on the Taiwan side. I don’t know what the situation in Canada is, but in the US as long as you can show that the money was legitimately obtained and that you paid any taxes if it was income, then you should be OK. I’ve wired in money plenty of times and it’s always been a pretty simple matter.
One additional issue if the money is coming from your parents is to make sure that everyone is clear whether it is a gift or a loan. If it is a gift then you may be subject to gift tax if it is over a certain amount (whatever it is in Canada). I know that it’s easy just to make a verbal agreement because it’s your parents, but I’d highly suggest they write down the amount loaned, the interest rate (which must be a reasonable market rate or it can be considered a gift), and payment terms and have all of you sign it.
Wires that I’ve done from the US have always arrived the next business day. My US bank charges US$38 and the intermediary charges $5. I use En-Tie Bank to receive the wire and they don’t charge an additional fee. Some banks here charge a fee for currency conversion though. You will have to go in to ‘claim’ the money though, so it won’t actually show up in your account until you do so. I’ve done wires in ~10 hours from California before. Call in the night before (morning there) and then head to the bank the next morning and it’s already waiting to be claimed. The sending bank usually has a cutoff time for wires to go out, especially if they use an intermediary bank, so it may be one additional day if you miss the deadline.
If you really want to keep money in Canadian Dollars, you should triple check that everyone can handle CAD wires. It is very common, especially for smaller banks, for wires to be done through a US bank and in US Dollars only. If you are going to be using the money in Taiwan then I’d say convert it to Taiwan Dollars as soon as it comes in and leave it as that.
I’m not so sure I would.
finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1: … =undefined[/quote]
I agree this is part of the feds regulations. The american dollar will continue to grow weak and it brings more investment and business to america it also produces jobs which lowers the US’s unemployment rate. It is summertime in america which means gas prices go up which also means the us market sags in some places but my advice is change your money in October. Fall seems to be the consistent drop point for the NTD. I could be wrong I am just picturing the chart in my head. This part was for Americans that are exchanging US dollars.
On to the topic at hand: Wait because you will get more from your money if you do this in october check out this 5 year chart.
finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart3: … =undefined
I am not saying you should rely on history but international money exchanges stay very consistent(without war disasters etc…); near the second week in october OCT there is a dip in the NTD for many years straight.
I don’t think I was clear about my point. If you’re wiring money into Taiwan and are going to use it in Taiwan, then get it into Taiwan Dollars. Then you have money you can use at any time without worrying about what the exchange rate is right now. If you aren’t going to use it and would prefer to hold your money in foreign currency, then hold it in a foreign bank outside of Taiwan. A Taiwanese bank is the last place I’d want to stash my foreign currency. The better question to ask: is now a good time to convert CAD to TWD? Looking at the chart, the CAD is at a very high point compared to the TWD, so it looks like a good time. The trend may continue or not, but at least you’re going to get a decent number of TWD for your CAD currently. I wouldn’t bring over more than you’ll use over the next year or so though.
I’m interning at The Bank of Nova Scotia Taipei Branch.
I’ll ask our treasury/FX department for you on Monday and get back to you.
The process could be safer and easier than going through a local bank.
Btw - CAD is good to hold on to as they are predicting it to be on par with USD soon.
Got to 1.072 a few days ago which is an all time record.
[quote=“frokky”]I’m interning at The Bank of Nova Scotia Taipei Branch.
I’ll ask our treasury/FX department for you on Monday and get back to you.
The process could be safer and easier than going through a local bank.
Btw - CAD is good to hold on to as they are predicting it to be on par with USD soon.
Got to 1.072 a few days ago which is an all time record.[/quote]
frokky, does Scotia Bank in TW actually handle private banking? I thought they were business and investment only here…