Canadian Citizen Serving as Plan Trustee

[Guest EMM118]

I was wondering if anyone has ever looked at the issue as to whether or not a Canadian citizen can serve as a trustee of a pension plan established and maintained in the United States? This is a pension plan covering husband and wife. I'm guessing that maybe a US financial institution might haver some rules on this subject, but I was unable to find any authority on this issue. Thanks in advance for your assistence. Ed

[rcline46]

The trustee of a US pension plan must be a 'US person', either a citizen if individual trusteed or a US financial institution qualified to be a trustee (a state law issue).

Don't remember exactly where in ERISA this is, and there was a change about 5 years ago clarifying this issue and we had to redo trustees on some plans.