California
Basically, my Mom's sister living in California passed away (she had no family in the US being UK born) leaving my Mom as Successor Trustee and Sole Beneficiary, so quite an easy set up overall. However, our Attorney has informed us that it is difficult for a non US citizen to act as a Trustee on a US Trust as there is something called a 'Foreign Trust Taxation' which apparently is quite expensive and something we want to avoid 'at all costs'. He has asked us if we have any friends/family in the US that can act as Trustee, which we don't, so the other alternative is to appoint a Non Attorney in California who can do the job but I believe they charge hundreds of dollars an hour to do this.
So its balancing losing control of the Trust to someone we don't even know or continuing with my Mom as Trustee and likely having to pay a lot more in Tax! Does anyone have any idea what sort of money we are talking about in terms of tax? Obviously without knowing the estates worth you cant tell me exactly but I mean more as a percentage of an average estate?
Any help or ideas we haven't thought of would be useful. Its very frustrating that a very straightforward Trust is going to be complicated just because we aren't US citizens!
Thanks
Basically, my Mom's sister living in California passed away (she had no family in the US being UK born) leaving my Mom as Successor Trustee and Sole Beneficiary, so quite an easy set up overall. However, our Attorney has informed us that it is difficult for a non US citizen to act as a Trustee on a US Trust as there is something called a 'Foreign Trust Taxation' which apparently is quite expensive and something we want to avoid 'at all costs'. He has asked us if we have any friends/family in the US that can act as Trustee, which we don't, so the other alternative is to appoint a Non Attorney in California who can do the job but I believe they charge hundreds of dollars an hour to do this.
So its balancing losing control of the Trust to someone we don't even know or continuing with my Mom as Trustee and likely having to pay a lot more in Tax! Does anyone have any idea what sort of money we are talking about in terms of tax? Obviously without knowing the estates worth you cant tell me exactly but I mean more as a percentage of an average estate?
Any help or ideas we haven't thought of would be useful. Its very frustrating that a very straightforward Trust is going to be complicated just because we aren't US citizens!
Thanks