Ever since the election, advisors’ phones have been ringing with clients asking about tax reform. But making predictions about what government will do, especially with an untested and unconventional president, is turning out to be a dicey game.

Enacting tax legislation is an arduous complicated process, typically taking many months or even years. Moreover, during the first 30 days of the Trump administration, other issues like deregulation have overshadowed tax reform, even though financial markets already are pricing lower taxes into equity prices.

Realistically, the Republicans should be able to achieve some measure of tax reform on their own since they control both houses of Congress and the White House. But sharp differences are emerging in their own camp and while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wants tax reform passed by August, finding agreement on how to cut taxes could be challenging. For example, House Speaker Paul Ryan has tentatively embraced a border adjustment tax (BAT), South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham recently said it might get 10 votes in the Senate.

Conceptually, a BAT is designed to raise revenue from outside America. Many other nations employ similar revenue-raising scheme. After all, foreigners don't vote. Analysts say it would benefit exporters and hurt importers like retailers, while raising prices for U.S. consumers. Proponents argue a stronger dollar would offset much of the damage to consumers from higher prices.

Skeptics abound. Libertarians like John Mauldin have predicted a BAT could cause a global recession. Other than that, he thinks many other ideas being tossed around like a three-bracket rate schedule and elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax are highly positive. But the precarious status of state tax deductability could emerge as another issue.

A deep divide in the majority party is why some Washington insiders like Greg Valliere think we may not see a new tax bill enacted until 2018. Others recall that the 1986 tax reform legislation took severl years to hammer out.

Simplification would be positive but Tony Rose, founding partner in the accounting firm Rose, Snyder and Jacobs in Encino, Calif., doesn’t expect most high earners to pay significantly less taxes than they have in recent years. No less an authority than Mnuchin has indicated broadening the base and eliminating deductions could offset the bulk of the benefits of lower marginal rates for upper-income folks. And he has said repeatedly that badly squeezed, middle-class America should be the major beneficiaries.

Clients in states with high income taxes could be the hardest hit if state tax deductions are eliminated or restricted. More than 30 states have top marginal tax rates over 5 percent, and some are significantly higher than that.

In addition to famous tax-and-spend states like California, New York and New Jersey, others such as Idaho, Iowa, Montana, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Maine all sport top marginal income tax rates of 7 percent or higher, according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation. If the deduction were totally eliminated, high earners in these states might end up paying more. High earners in California, with a top state tax rate of 13.3 percent, would be hurt the hardest if this deduction were abolished.

Lisa Brown, partner at Brightworth in Atlanta, notes that both Republicans and Democrats want tax reform, albeit in different areas. She is urging clients to realize that if a tax bill is delayed into late 2017, it might not become effective until 2018.

“Don’t rush in and make an irreversible decision,” she advises.

Within days of the election, clients started asking Brown whether they try to defer income, stock grants and other items into 2017. In most cases, her advice was split the difference if possible, using the 2016 stock sales to finance various goals like retirement savings and paying down the mortgage. That way, you “can’t go wrong,” she says.

Other major uncertainties include the AMT. The AMT hits clients making between $200,000 and $800,000 the hardest. So if the AMT is eliminated, clients will receive a windfall, but it could be partially offset if limits were placed the deductibility of state taxes and charitable contributions.

Clients are eager to see but lower taxes and the government probably will urge them to spend their windfall. Brown is counseling caution. “If rates go down and clients have more money in their pockets, save the money,” she says.

Corporate taxes are one area where there appears to be a measure of unanimity that rates should be reduced to make the U.S. more competitive. Most of the agreement, however, has centered on tax rates for C corporations, many of which large public companies.

But that’s where the certainty, if one call it that, ends. Most small business owners, including many financial advisors and their clients, are organized as S corporations, LLCs or partnerships. Some proposals call for these pass-through entities in which company profits are taxed at ordinary income rates but they vary widely.

House Republicans now call for private business owners to continue to be taxed at ordinary income tax rates and want to cut the top rate to 33 percent, from 39.6 percent.

Others have suggested that all business income be taxed at the same rate, regardless of the form of business entity. But lowering the rate on pass-through entities down into the low- or mid-20 percent area might simply drain too much revenue to be practical.