“I’m a person who believes in paying taxes—so much so that when boomers hurl ‘socialist’ at me as an insult on Facebook, I enthusiastically click the heart reaction

ADHD tax is a made-up term for extra costs incurred as a consequence of executive dysfunction.

ADHD tax might mean paying an impound lot to get your car back because you thought it was Tuesday but really it was Wednesday and you parked on the wrong side of the street.

For the record, I’m a person who believes in paying taxes.

When I pictured my life at 40, I never imagined I’d still be living paycheck to paycheck.

I was a free-lunch kid who grew up in subsidized housing.

My parents divorced when I was 3, and when my mom got the child support check every other week, she would treat herself.

Fueled by desperation for a better life and a few small scholarships and Pell Grants, she made her way to college in New York.

A financial aid counselor helped me figure out that (on the advice of some guy from her church, she later learned) my mom had claimed me as a dependent so she could get a tax credit.

As much as I would like to blame all of my money problems on my mom’s low-level tax fraud, it was really more of a kick-me-when-I-was-down situation because I was already in the red.