Sell house (H1B) - 10% withhold? Help again pls.

I asked the question before about the H1-B selling house need to give 10% gross sales withholding in ecsrow company until next year tax is filed. Thanks for help. Yesterday I faxed the H1B visas to title company lawyer per his request, also gave our CPA number to him to call. As our CPA said we do not need to let them withdraw, we have social security number and we file 1040 as resident. However I got the response from title company in email today:

"Our title insurer reviewed the documents you emailed to xx and the following is what was emailed back to xx: XX, As far as we are concerned, these documents are immaterial to the FIRPTA process. They fail to indicate that the "non-immigrant workers" have a SSAN or filed a U.S. federal income tax return for 2004. FIRPTA is designed to collect estimated capital gains taxes from folks who are unlikely to report such gains on their federal return. Assuming that the transaction involves a consideration over $300,000 or, if lower, the buyer does not intend to reside upon the property, you must collect and remit to the IRS a sum equal to 10% of the GROSS sales price." What does FIRPTA mean?

Does anyone go through this craziness? It is pure discrimination. I called the agent and sent a long email to this lawyer. Tell him to talk with my CPA. also I will not sign off for this withholding. I tell the agent I might withdraw the contract if the title company has to withhold, he said he will make lawyer talk with CPA first. I wonder if there is anything more I can do to avoid this stupid withholding. If they do withhold, and I get it back next year, do I need to pay tax for that again. 10% of gross sales is 40K.

Thanks a lot.

所有跟帖： 

• FIRPTA--Foreign Investment in -stp- ♂ (375 bytes) () 11/16/2005 postreply 19:37:05

• PUB515上也有NRA和RA的定义, 你让那些 -stp- ♂ (2764 bytes) () 11/16/2005 postreply 19:43:38

• 回复：FIRPTA--Foreign Investment in -68193- ♀ (41 bytes) () 11/16/2005 postreply 19:45:24

• 不客气, 将IRS的网站地址告诉那本单 -stp- ♂ (233 bytes) () 11/16/2005 postreply 19:58:14

• 回复：不客气, 将IRS的网站地址告诉那本单 -68193- ♀ (829 bytes) () 11/16/2005 postreply 20:58:00

• 你也有权换TITLE公司, 不行就FIRE了. -stp- ♂ (0 bytes) () 11/16/2005 postreply 21:29:08