what is the value of gift a non-US citizen(Taiwan citizen) can give to a US citizen
without triggering tax liabilities for the US citizen?

Hello and thank you for your question.

As noted in the comment below, all gifts are received tax-free.
But gifts received by a US person in a year that total more than
$100,000 must be reported to the IRS on Form 3520.

Form 3520 (last page)
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f3520.pdf

Search terms used:
Form 3520

Thanks for letting us help.
Richard-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by richard-ga on 13 May 2005 13:58 PDT

To clarify, when I wrote "gifts" I meant "gifts received from non-US
persons," which is the sort of gifts that your question refers to.

-R

HI,
Please read the disclaimer at the bottom of this page that says that
this is not professional or legal advice.

Gift and Estate Tax in the US is owed by the giver or the estate of
the deceased, NOT by the recipient as in some other countries.  If the
Taiwan citizen is not a resident of the USA and subject to US taxes
for that or some other reason, it seems (to me, see disclaimer) that
no gift tax is incurred.

This is the site of the IRS (Internal Revenue Service = US tax office)
on the subject:
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=98968,00.html#gift

I hope I am correct, but you should get confirmation.

If the donor is subject to US tax, the site will also provide information.

Good luck!

I didn't know about the giver of the gift being responsible for taxes
(that sounds quite backwards to me and actually against what I had
heard before).  But whether that is the case or not, there is an
annual exclusion for gifts:

You can give up to $11,000 to any person in a year and there will be
no taxes involved.  That means... if you're married and you're giving
a gift to a married couple then you can potentially give them $44,000
in a year:
man 1   gives  man 2 $11,000
man 1  gives woman 2 $11,000
woman 1 gives  man 2 $11,000
wamn 1 gives woman 2 $11,000
That can all be done without taxes.

joecamel1-ga,

I have looked into this further and discovered that it is important
that US citizen recipient of such a gift MUST report it to the IRS. 
Here are two sites that discuss the matter:

http://www.rowbotham.com/articles/International/foreign_gifts.htm

Very near the end of the following site, the matter is also discussed.
 I have include the text from the hit since the HTML thread was so
long.

[PDF] ESTATE AND GIFT TAXATION OF NONRESIDENT ALIENS After the Economic ...
Dateiformat: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - HTML-Version
... NRAs Are Subject to US Gift Tax is on Gifts of Real Property or
Tangible ... Information regarding the identity of the foreign donor
will generally not ...
www.gtlaw.com/pub/articles/2001/chungg01a.pdf 

Obviously, this is no legal or professional advice, as the disclaimer
at the bottom of the page states.

as stated in pub 950
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p950/ar01.html#d0e16
No tax on the person receiving your gift or estate.   The person who
receives your gift or your estate will not have to pay any federal
gift tax or estate tax because of it. Also, that person will not have
to pay income tax on the value of the gift or inheritance received.
pub 17 p.98 Other income
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p17.pdf
gift is not included in your taxable income.

so far there will not be any tax liabilities for the US citizen in your example.