President Trump's tax returns show he has company: How rich Americans avoid taxes

Like President Donald Trump, rich Americans often deploy sophisticated tax avoidance strategies to maximize their wealth.

President Trump paid little to no federal income taxes in recent years, according to the first series of New York Times stories on his tax returns.

Like President Donald Trump, rich Americans often deploy sophisticated tax avoidance strategies to maximize their wealth.

Wealthy Americans are the largest source of underreported income, according to IRS data analyzed by researchers.

Many wealthy Americans deploy complex, arcane but wholly legal strategies to minimize their tax obligations.

Here are some of the most common tax avoidance strategies deployed by the wealthy:.

The long-term capital gains tax rate maxes out at 20%, and the highest income tax rate is 37%.

Unrealized capital gains accounted for more than one-third of the assets held by the richest 1% of Americans in 2013, according to a Federal Reserve analysis. By comparison, the bottom 90% of Americans have only 6% of their assets in unrealized capital gains.

This setup is most likely to help the wealthy: 61% of the benefits go to the wealthiest 1% of Americans, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation

Called the "stepped-up basis" tax break, this loophole "encourages wealthy people to turn as much of their income into capital gains as possible and hold on to assets until death, when a lifetime of gain becomes permanently exempt from tax," according to the CBPP