It is not usually income. It is a gift and gifts of corpus are not taxable. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/102
It could be income if it were a gift of income (e.g. a gift of the interest on an asset, but not the asset itself). This is not common.
More likely an issue is this scenario. If, for example, the grantor has $200, 000 in an account, dies on 5/20, and$100 interest payment is credited to the account on 5/31 and on 6/1 the whole account is transferred to the trust.
Then the grantor's estate has $100 of income. If the estate will is open on 12/31 it will file a 1041 and pay tax on the $100. If it is closed before 12/31 it will file as 1041 showing the $100 distributed to the beneficiary (perhaps the grantor trust) and the bene will pay tax on the $100. [Note a estate needs $600 of income to have a filing requirement and there is a useful option to elect to have the estate and a certain trusts "merged" for 1041 purposes for two year.]
No one pays income tax on the corpus of $20,000 because it is a gift of corpus.
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