Qualified Disability Trust: Meaning and Tax Requirements

What Is a Qualified Disability Trust?

A qualified disability trust (QDisT) is a type of trust that qualifies for tax exemptions and applies to most trusts set up for someone with special needs. Normally, you must pay income tax on the income you receive from trusts, and that requirement formerly included special needs trusts. However, in 2003, Congress added a section to the Internal Revenue Code that allowed some disability trusts to reduce this tax liability.

Trusts need to meet several criteria to be considered qualified disability trusts for tax purposes. If your special needs trust meets these criteria, however, this could save you a significant amount of money.

Find out more about what qualified disability trusts are, and which trusts are eligible for this tax deduction.

How a Qualified Disability Trust Works

The best way to understand a qualified disability trust is to review an example.

Let’s say that a child is diagnosed with a disability and that shortly afterward, their grandparents contribute $500,000 to an irrevocable special needs trust that the child’s parents have established for the benefit of the child. Let’s say that this trust generates $25,000 in annual income and that $10,000 of it is used yearly for expenses that arise from the child’s care and other needs.

The question then becomes: Who pays the income tax bill on the trust’s gains?

There are several options:

• The parents could include the income from the trust as part of their taxes. Because the trust income would then be “on top” of their earned income, they will pay their marginal tax rate on the $25,000 generated from the trust in our example. This could mean that they pay $8,000 or more in tax.
• Alternatively, trust income that is spent for the child’s benefit can be taxed to the child—in this case, that would mean $10,000, as listed above. This would leave $15,000, but that must be taxed to the trust. Trust income tax brackets are high and increase steeply. This means that paying taxes this way can sometimes result in even higher taxes than the option above.

The concept of qualified disability trusts was designed to get around this problem. The legal authority to create a QDisT falls under §642(b)(2)(C) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Qualified disability trusts would be entitled to the exemption amount for the year, which would not be taxed.

​Qualified Disability Trusts and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

In 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was passed, eliminating personal exemptions until 2025.

This would have also eliminated the tax benefits of QDisTs; however, the same law established that in any year when there isn’t a personal exemption, there will be an exemption allowed for a QDisT.

For the 2024 tax year, $5,000 is the indexed tax exemption amount for these trusts, including most special needs trusts.

The $5,000 exemption will have a much bigger impact on reducing eligible families’ tax bills than the usual $100 exemption (or $300 exemption if a trust is required to distribute all of its income each year) allowed for other trusts.

Requirements for Qualified Disability Trusts

To be reported as a qualified disability trust, a trust must meet certain requirements. The most basic, as outlined by the Special Needs Alliance, a national organization of attorneys practicing disability and public benefits law, are that:

• The trust must be irrevocable.
• The trust must be established for the sole benefit of the disabled beneficiary.
• The disabled beneficiary must be under age 65 when the trust is established.
• The beneficiary must have a disability that is included in the definition of disabled pursuant to the Social Security Act.

The trust must be a third-party trust, meaning that “all of its funding must come from someone other than the disabled beneficiary, typically a parent or grandparent, other relative, or friend,” according to the Special Needs Alliance. If the person funding the trust during their lifetime is also serving as the trustee, then the qualified disability trust status may not be possible.

Most special needs trusts are funded by parents and are set up as irrevocable trusts for the benefit of their children. So, in most cases, they can be treated as qualified disability trusts.

The Bottom Line

Qualified disability trusts (QDisTs) are a type of trust that provides tax benefits. Most special needs trusts are considered qualified disability trusts, making them especially valuable for families caring for someone diagnosed with a disability.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), which eliminated personal tax exemptions from 2018 until 2025, didn’t erase or change the tax benefits of QDisTs because the law also established an indexed exemption ($5,000 for 2024) to be taken by these types of trusts during the TCJA’s effective period.