ADHD in April: Doing Your Taxes When You're Attentionally Deficient

Nobody likes to do their taxes. But for the approximately 4% of adults with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) tax time can be a significant challenge.


Everyone knows about ADHD in children. It is among the most commonly diagnosed childhood disorders, and the children who have it tend to, umm, bring themselves to the attention of those around them quite effectively. However, although people tend to assume that those children "grow out" of their difficulties, a large portion of them do not. For those individuals who continue to experience the difficulties that make up ADHD past childhood and adolescence, adult and professional life is filled with challenges of which the average, "neurotypical" adult is hardly aware. 


ADHD is a neurobiological disorder that negatively impacts the development, size, and functioning of several regions of the brain, most prominently the lateral prefrontal cortex. That brain region serves to organize, integrate, and apply many of the observations, thoughts, and impulses that are processed by other areas of the brain and use them to take further action. Specific executive functions served by the prefontal cortex include planning complex cognitive behaviors, differentiating between conflicting thoughts or ideas, determining future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, regulation of attention, and suppression of impulses. 

3D, high-resolution MRI image of
the brain of a patient with ADHD

Well, your own prefrontal cortex can see where this is going: people with ADHD and impaired executive functioning have trouble with:

• Planning
• Initiating projects
• Following through on projects
• Maintaining attention
• Shifting attention effectively from one focus to another
• Organization
• Impulse regulation
• Delaying gratification
• Procrastination
• Low frustration tolerance

For many children and adolescents, these difficulties slowly diminish over time (especially the hyperactivity) until they are largely insignificant to their adult lives. Many others, though, continue to struggle with the challenges that ADHD presents throughout their adult and professional lives. In addition to those listed above adults with ADHD face increased problems with: low self-esteem, employment problems, problems with the legal system (particularly around driving infractions), and relationship stress. Adults with ADHD often feel quite badly about themselves, as they compare themselves to others around them who might be far less intelligent or talented, but who are far more able to succeed because they can "get their stuff together" in a way that the person with ADHD simply cannot. It often seems as if adults with ADHD just "can't get out of their own way" enough to allow them to succeed. 

Or stay out of trouble with the IRS...

If the descriptions above sound familiar, you might be interested in a recent entry on PsychCentral's World of Psychology blog. But—if you have ADHD and have still managed to continue reading the article without clicking through—don't get your hopes up too high; the tips are for next year. The article quotes a woman with the fancy title of "senior certified ADHD coach" who, yet, makes the good point that, together with their characteristic procrastination, ADHD-ers' lack of organization makes the process of filing taxes a daunting task for them. "Because their tax information is so disorganized the idea of actually sitting down to complete the taxes is overwhelming.” To help solve that problem, a second senior certified ADHD coach offers the following 4-step plan to prepare now for the next tax year:

1. Figure out what information you should be saving
2. Have a way to record tax-deductible expenses
3. Create one place for tax-related paperwork, such as W-2s, 1099s and medical bills
4. Schedule ‘Tax Time’ each week 

The coach concedes that “the system itself will probably differ from person to person," but stresses "what’s important is using it consistently and to have tax stuff together in a safe place.” 

And therein lies the problem. It's not just creating the systems that ADHD-ers have trouble with, it's the follow-through that's the main problem. These ideas sound great, but doing anything consistently is a stretch for this population, even more so for a full year. Heck, I won't even be able to locate this article 13 months from now, and that's just one paper!