I will be moving to the UK later this year and am working on getting my financial house in compliance for the move. I am already planning for conversion of mutual funds in brokerage accounts to UK reporting funds/etfs, so think I have that part solved.
My question arises from what to do with a trust fund that I am a designated beneficiary of with my siblings. It is an irrevocable children's trust fund set up by my parents. The assets within it are currently invested in mutual funds that are not UK reporting funds. Because of potential taxation issues, we are trying to decide whether to liquidate/dissolve the trust before the move in order to not worry about any potential UK tax issues. However, if this is shielded from the UK for the time being (until I am paid out from it), then there are potentially benefits from waiting and liquidating it over several years. The benefits would arise from me being able to exclude all my UK income using the FEIE. I could then liquidate a part of the trust for capital gains up to the standard deduction in the US (~$12,400 - married filing jointly) and avoid capital gains tax there. Then here in the UK, I think I could use the ~£11,000 capital gains allowance to prevent tax here. So if this is possible, it would save paying the capital gains tax in the US that would be assessed if we liquidate it before moving and essentially allow withdrawal of the assets tax free over a period of several years. So I guess in the end, it boils down to is the trust fund subject to UK taxes once I move to the UK?