A recent New York Times story on Donald Trump’s long-sought-after tax data reported that he avoided paying federal income taxes for the past several years and paid only $750 the year he was elected president.

Many of your wealthy clients might be asking, “Why can’t I do that?”

Fewer than 0.5% of very high-income households paid as little tax as President Trump in 2016, according to a follow-up analysis by The Tax Policy Center. The analysis of the 420,000 households that reported at least $1 million in AGI for 2016 also showed that fewer than 2,000 paid as little as President Trump did—making him “an extreme outlier” among rich taxpayers, wrote Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, on the “Tax Vox” blog.

Gleckman added that further center analysis shows that among the 20 million households that earned around the median income (AGI of about $50,000 to $75,000), only about one in 10 paid $750 or less and that 45% of those middle-income households paid between $5,000 and $10,000 in federal income tax that year.

Though some have claimed Trump paid far more in other taxes and made shrewd use of breaks, credits and deductions, others have called the report’s numbers symptomatic of a tax code tilted too far toward the wealthy. They also question Trump’s true tax and business acumen.

“Unlike today, there was no $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction back in 2016. But those making $1 million or more could have been subject to two provisions that limited the benefit of many of those deductions—a since-repealed reduction in the amount of allowed itemized deductions (named for its author, Rep. Don Pease), and the individual Alternative Minimum Tax,” Gleckman wrote.

The who  discussion naturally brings questions to clients’ minds. “I’ve had some clients joke that they were going to fire me because they paid much more than $750 in taxes,” added Rob Seltzer, a CPA at Seltzer Business Management in Los Angeles.

“The ones with knowledge of how taxes work realize that there are only two ways he could’ve paid what’s shown,” Seltzer said. “One would be taking questionable deductions that could be disallowed or even considered fraudulent. The second was that he is highly leveraged and had many failing businesses. They understand that for him to have those kinds of losses, he is not nearly as successful as he tries to portray himself to be.”

Many high-net-worth clients of Gail Rosen, a CPA in Martinsville, N.J., have asked her reaction to President Trump’s taxes. “A popular topic is his $70,000 hairstyling associated with ‘The Apprentice,’ an expense he deducted to look his best for the show, and it’s interesting the amount of the expense and that the producer of the show didn’t bear this cost,” she said.

“If you want to try to deduct $70,000 for haircuts, be prepared to be audited,” Seltzer said.
 
Headline tax revelations also make some wealthy clients wonder if they can mimic specific aspects of businesses. Rosen’s clients, for example, have expressed interest in understanding the deductions President Trump took associated with real estate.

“I’ve explained that to fully deduct your real estate losses against your business income, you must meet certain strict criteria in the tax code to be classified a ‘real estate professional’,” Rosen said. She also wonders if Trump claimed the real estate professional status in the years that he was president.

“I tell clients that the IRS has been targeting tax returns claiming a real estate professionals’ status,” Rosen said. “Be very cautious if [you] claim this status.”
 
“He gets audited every year because of questionable deductions. He’s had multiple bankruptcies,” Seltzer said. “You don’t want to be like Trump” in business.