It's all in the spin. Note that nowhere do they come out and say that he didn't pay income tax for 18 years -- or 15 years, or ten years, or even two years. No, they say he "could have" avoided paying taxes for 18 years. And they know damned well that 90 percent of the functional illiterates who read the story will forever believe that Trump DID NOT pay any income tax for 18 years, even though there has been NOTHING brought out to demonstrate that.
So, according to the NYT, it's horrible if Trump "might not" (but also might) have paid income tax for 18 years, but it's not a problem when the NYT didn't pay income tax (for real, not "might" or "maybe").
NYT, your hypocrisy is showing (again/still).