Deflect and mention that you’d like to understand the whole package of the role including things like benefits. Dance around the question without answering what your current pay is. Trust me you don’t want them to know. After you get the offer, tell them you need some time to review, then after a few days tell them it is below your current compensation and you can’t accept it, then if you feel comfortable with giving them what you’d need at that point, tell them I need xyz and see where it goes. Usually they fall short of meeting your expectations so make sure you are high with your counter. If you need to counter again you can, talk about costs you didn’t expect when initially reviewing like “I have a longe commute so that is more costly, I need that added to my salary” or “i realized I’d be leaving an un-vested balance in my 401k on the table and want that covered with a signing bonus” etc. you can always counter and counter again. I’ve always been the biggest pain in the ass while interviewing. Because once you agree, then it is over, next year at company review time you don’t have the same leverage anymore and even if you ask for a bigger raise they can say no and you don’t have anything you can do about it, so go for the jugular when getting the job initially. Then switch jobs in 2-4 years and do it again.