Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: Georgia’s manual states the funding target with a precision no other state in this series matches. Properly funded “means that, at minimum, the difference between the specified state income cap (minus a dollar) and the applicant’s total income has been deposited”. Minus a dollar — the deposit has to take you strictly below the cap, not to it. And the deadline is absolute: the application is denied for any month in which a QIT was not both established and funded before the month ended.
What Georgia requires
| What the state sets out | What it says |
|---|---|
| Available in Georgia since | Effective September 1, 2004, Qualified Income Trusts (QIT) become a viable means in Georgia |
| What “properly funded” means | “the difference between the specified state income cap (minus a dollar) and the applicant’s total income has been deposited” |
| Deadline | “Deny the application due to excess income for any benefit month after August 2004 in which a QIT was not established AND funded prior to the end of the benefit month” |
| Income left in the trust | “the excess income is subject to the transfer of assets penalty” |
| Transfers to a spouse | “placed in a QIT may be transferred for the sole benefit of a spouse without incurring a penalty” |
| The approved template | Form 948 – QIT Approved Template |
How it works in practice
- The minus-a-dollar rule is the one to act on. Depositing exactly enough to reach the cap leaves you at the cap, and Georgia wants you below it: “the difference between the specified state income cap (minus a dollar) and the applicant’s total income has been deposited”
- The month-end deadline is the harshest provision on this page. Georgia will “Deny the application due to excess income for any benefit month after August 2004 in which a QIT was not established AND funded prior to the end of the benefit month”. There is no retroactive cure — a trust signed on the first of the following month cannot rescue the month before.
- Money left sitting in the trust is not neutral: “the excess income is subject to the transfer of assets penalty”. That converts an administrative oversight into a transfer-penalty problem, which is a materially worse outcome than simply being over income.
The mechanism itself — why an income cap exists and what the trust must contain — is explained on the income-cap and Miller trust page. This page is the Georgia record.
What this page does not settle
- There is a safe harbour on the spousal side — “placed in a QIT may be transferred for the sole benefit of a spouse without incurring a penalty” — and a state template, Form 948 – QIT Approved Template, which the manual treats as a faster route through review than a bespoke document.
- This page reads one source: Georgia DFCS, ABD Medicaid Manual section 2407, Qualified Income Trust. It is the state’s own publication on this rule, but no state puts its whole treatment of excess income in a single document, and a detail that decides your case may sit in one this page did not read.
- A trust fixes an income problem and nothing else. The asset test, the level-of-care test and the transfer-of-assets look-back are separate hurdles, each decided on your own file, and meeting this rule does not clear any of them.
- Every quotation here was read against the source on August 27, 2026. States revise these rules, and a figure or a section number can move without the page around it changing. Open the source before you rely on a detail.
Eligibility is decided by the state agency on the whole file, not by one rule on one page. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should move, retitle or assign income on the strength of a web page.
Sources
The source above was retrieved and read against the state text on August 27, 2026. Every quotation on this page was checked against those bytes.
Somebody has to hold legal authority to do any of this on the applicant’s behalf, and when nobody does, what adult guardianship costs in Georgia gives the fees Georgia fixes by statute and says where the state publishes no figure at all.
Related: Georgia’s Medicaid home equity limit for a single applicant with no spouse or dependent child at home.
Related: Georgia’s Medicaid Personal Needs Allowance; the amount a nursing-facility resident keeps from their own income each month.