My mother is an American citizen living in California - she has had dementia for many years and is legally incompetent to manage her money, but before she was ruled incompetent she put me on as a trustee on a trust that holds basically everything she owns (she's living in a rental care home, so she pretty much has no possessions outside of that trust) including mostly mutual funds, with some bonds and some cash.
I have dual American and Canadian citizenship - I have lived in Canada for over 40 years, but I travel down regularly to take care of my mother's affairs.
She's nearing her time, and I'm trying to sort everything out before-hand since I know I won't be up to much when the time comes. Now, as I understand it, being co-trustee circumvents capital gains tax with a non-liable step-up, so if I were to liquidate the American financial assets she holds in short order then there would be negligible CGT due since it would be calculated from market price at the time of her passing, rather than her purchase price.
It's the next step I'm stumped at, however; I have no interest in hanging onto an American account full of American currency. Investment options in Canada are Much better, and I would like to buy Canadian bonds, and my daughters are also Canadian and I want to see to them - but how difficult will it be to bring approx. $4,550,000 across the border?