Whether for commercial intentions or personal affairs, everyone must confront legal circumstances sooner or later in their lives.
Completing legal paperwork requires meticulous care, starting with selecting the appropriate form template.
While you can choose a non-citizen trustee, you should look for someone who is, at minimum, a resident of the United States to be your trust's fiduciary. You want to avoid the risk of your trust being classified as a foreign trust for federal or California tax purposes.
The trustee can be an individual, a corporate trustee, or a combination of both. Naming a trusted family member has some advantages, but a corporate trustee has expertise that a family member typically doesn't have.
Interest income earned by the trust is deductible if distributed to a foreign beneficiary but because the beneficiary is a nonresident alien, he will not be subject to U.S. income tax on the distribution. Therefore, the income is not subject to withholding tax (see Rev. Rul.
To pass the control test, your trustee cannot be both a non-citizen and non-resident. If they are, then your trust will likely fail this requirement and be considered foreign for tax and other purposes.
Foreign nongrantor trusts All trusts that are not grantor trusts are considered nongrantor trusts for US purposes. Foreign nongrantor trusts are not generally subject to US tax, unless the trust earns US source or effectively connected income.