This can be perfectly legit, or not of course. How come such transfers don't attract irs or govt attention? I can't give my son more than the max annual gift of 15k without it being taxable. I've always wondered why international money transfers can seemingly ignore these rules. I expect the parents are somehow hiding that it's a gift to the kid.

> 15K is not taxable. > 15K ought to be reported and will count against your lifetime exclusion. If you are likely to leave less than 11.4 million dollars, then the >15K you give every year is never taxed.

Gift taxes are payable by the giver, not by the receiver.

Yes. But I'd bet that the parents just claim the kid owned that account. Tax rules in other countries like China may not require a gift tax, so you could just give it to your kid in china, and then move that account to the us, so it doesn't look like a gift. Indeed, this article says they are thinking of adding gift taxes in China. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/china-considering-to-collect-.... So I'm sure people would follow this practice and avoid us gift taxes and limits.

It happened once therefore it happens quite often is not a great argument

You mean twice. Which means its probably happening a lot more in other locales