Understanding QSTs: An innovate, underutilized asset protection tool
In the estate planning world, Qualified Spousal Trusts (QSTs) have been in existence since 2011. However, many individuals are still unfamiliar with the extraordinary benefits that come with implementing such a technique into their own estate plans. This article serves as a reminder of the importance of QSTs and an encouragement to consider their application to your own estate plan.
Enacted on July 4, 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) raised the estate and gift tax lifetime exclusion to $15 million for individuals and $30 million for married couples (indexed annually for inflation). Consequently, individuals and married couples will not pay estate or gift tax if their total lifetime transfers, plus the value of their estate at death, is less than $15 million or $30 million, respectively.
As a result, higher lifetime exclusion amounts have changed conversations between estate planning attorneys and their clients. Many clients now put greater emphasis on asset protection opportunities rather than worrying about estate and gift tax savings. Despite passing into law nearly sixteen years ago, Missouri’s innovative Qualified Spousal Trust (QST) remains a potentially underutilized asset protection tool.
A QST is a special type of revocable trust authorized under Missouri law available only to married couples. Both spouses create the trust and transfer assets into it, while retaining control over the assets and access to income and principal during their lifetimes. Unlike traditional “his and hers” revocable trusts, a QST allows couples to combine estate planning flexibility with important creditor-protection benefits.
To understand why QSTs have generated so much interest among estate planning attorneys, it helps to understand a unique form of property ownership known as “tenancy by the entirety.” In Missouri, property owned by a husband and wife as tenants by the entirety is generally protected from the separate creditors of either spouse. A creditor with a claim against only one spouse typically cannot reach property owned by the marital unit.
Historically, married couples often faced a tradeoff. They could leave assets titled jointly to preserve creditor protection or transfer those assets into one or more revocable trusts to avoid probate and simplify estate administration. Even if transferring to a joint revocable trust, some practitioners worried about jeopardizing tenancy by entirety creditor protection since caselaw on the subject was underdeveloped.
Missouri’s 2011 QST statute, and subsequent amendments, mostly resolved practitioners’ uncertainties. Now, assets transferred to a properly structured QST generally retain the same immunity from the separate creditors of either spouse, regardless if those assets were owned by the spouses as tenants by entirety or as separate property before being transferred to the QST. Moreover, a QST may contain a single share, or it may consist of separate shares for each spouse. Clients with blended families or who own businesses or real estate sometimes find separate share arrangements especially appealing because particular assets can be allocated to one spouse’s separate share without surrendering the administrative benefits of a joint trust and increased creditor protection. Additionally, with some exceptions, creditor protections afforded by a QST continue after the first spouse dies.
Of course, QSTs are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Clients’ particular circumstances should be evaluated to determine whether establishing a QST is in fact the best course of action or if other alternatives are preferred. And it must be understood that QSTs cannot be used to circumvent Missouri’s fraudulent transfer laws or avoid super-status creditors like the IRS. Nevertheless, QSTs can be a powerful tool, capable of simultaneously accomplishing multiple client objectives.
Missouri is fortunate to have an adaptable statutory framework capable of helping practitioners and clients account for numerous variables. Children grow up, relationships evolve, and time catches up with all of us. Change is guaranteed in family dynamics. The same is true in business and law. Startups scale, one generation succeeds the next, and new laws generate new opportunities. Estate plans are integrally related to such variables, making it paramount to remember that estate plans, too, are dynamic and may be evolved to capture new opportunities. Therefore, readers are wise to periodically review their estate plans and should consider contacting their estate planning attorney to further discuss if the time is right to implement a QST or other asset protection strategies.
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Campbell, Clayton. (Posted online June 19, 2026). Opinion: Understanding QSTs: An innovate, underutilized asset protection tool. Springfield Business Journal.
Clayton D. Campbell is an estate planning and business attorney with the law firm of Carnahan Evans PC. He can be reached at ccampbell@carnahanevans.com.
