The NYT and the people who sign off on articles all have CPAs themselves and know exactly what the difference is. Trump hires a tax firm and doesn't do any of his own taxes. When a CPA does your taxes, they make all of the decisions and represent their clients to the IRS. No matter how much Trump pays in taxes, it's all done by CPAs who wouldn't risk losing their licensure/practice over one single client and almost surely follow the tax code exactly. I would know, I'm a tax accountant myself.