ou finished your return and you're still in shock. You made a lot of money and paid a lot of bills. But now you're looking at a tax bill that you just can't afford to pay.

Relax, you're not alone and your plight is not unusual. Moreover, you're not going to jail. There are criminal penalties if the IRS can prove (the burden of proof is on them) that you intentionally didn't pay your taxes, but we'll assume that's not the case here. You just ran low on cash and nobody goes to jail just because they owe money - even to the Internal Revenue Service.

Your return is done - that's how you know the magnitude of your debt. Mail it. Don't hold it just because you owe money that you can't pay. But don't mail it until it's due - April 15. There are penalties for both not paying and for not filing. Don't make matters worse by paying a penalty for not filing your return on top of what you already owe.

In fact, there is a penalty for late filing of 5 percent of the tax not paid by the due date for each month or part of a month your return is late. Generally, the maximum penalty is 25 percent. But if your return is more than 60 days late, the minimum penalty is $100 or the balance of the tax due on your return, whichever is smaller.

But avoiding the late filing penalty doesn't get the tax paid. Consider all of the possible sources of money. Can you borrow from friends or relatives? Do you have any equity in your house? If so, a home equity loan might help eliminate or minimize your tax liability. Moreover, the interest on the loan likely would be deductible on next year's return.

Do you have potential cash in your credit cards? The interest wouldn't be deductible and probably would be much higher than the rate the IRS would charge. Still, you might prefer to eliminate the specter of the IRS and the post-midnight nightmares that go with it.

But what if you decide to negotiate directly with the government? Understand that the government ranks at the top of the list of creditors who must get paid. Any assets (other than your home or selling your business) are potentially fair game if you owe taxes. Don't try to hide your assets. That comes under the heading of fraud and you can go to jail for that.

What if you can't find the cash? Remember, you're not alone. In fact, the IRS has a special form, Form 9465, specifically for these situations.

If you can't pay the full amount you owe, you can ask to pay in monthly installments. If the IRS approves your request, you will be charged a $43 fee. Don't submit the fee with the form. The IRS will normally deduct the fee from your first payment after your request is approved. The interest rate charged by the IRS changes quarterly and is calculated on the basis of the short-term federal rate plus 3 percentage points as of the first month of each quarter. The IRS recently announced a reduction of the rate on underpayments from 9 percent to 8 percent.

Even if your Form 9465 request is approved, you will still be charged interest and may be assessed a late payment penalty on any tax not paid by its due date. To limit interest and penalty charges, file your return on time and pay as much of the tax as you can.

Form 9465 is easy to complete. It asks your name, address, Social Security number, the name of your bank and your employer. (Relax. Based on your W-2 and the 1099 the bank sends, the IRS already has that information.) It then asks how much you owe and how much you want to pay each month. You don't need an attorney or an accountant to fill it out. If you can pay the outstanding liability within 12 months and promise to keep current with this year's taxes, almost all requests are granted.

If you can't pay what you owe within 12 months, request an installment plan that you can realistically meet. The IRS takes a harder line on longer payment periods but the government has granted such requests after investigating the individual circumstances.

The IRS can't get blood out of a stone. If there is no equity in your house for a home equity loan, then there isn't enough equity in it for the IRS to seize and sell. If you don't have any stocks or bonds to sell, then they aren't there for the IRS either. While access to IRAs is usually subject to individual state law, the Supreme Court has ruled that qualified pensions are immune from creditors - including the IRS.

You should consider an "Offer in Compromise" (Form 656), in which you offer to resolve your liability in full with either a reduced payment or a series of payments over a period of time. The IRS can accept such an offer if it thinks that's the best it can do. An Offer in Compromise allows you a fresh start. You'll have to provide the IRS a full set of financial statements, including your assets, liabilities, income and budgeted expenses.

What happens if the IRS rejects your offer? In the worst case, they can garnish a part of your wages. They can't take all of them. How much they can take is a function of your income, the number of dependents you have, and an allowance for certain expenses. While they may not leave you with a lot, you'll (supposedly) have sufficient funds to live and feed your family - although not in the style to which you've become accustomed.

In the ultimate situation, some taxpayers have resorted to the following strategy. Taxes normally can't be forgiven in a bankruptcy. However, income taxes that are more than three years overdue can be released in bankruptcy. For example, if I filed my 1994 taxes by April 15 of 1995, any balance owed by April 16, 1998 on those taxes can be released in bankruptcy.

Some taxpayers have filed on time, stalled as long as possible and then entered into a multi-year Offer in Compromise. After three years, they file for bankruptcy and any balance owed disappears. Not a technique I can ethically recommend, but one that is available.

The final word on what to do when you can't pay your taxes is communication. The IRS is a vast bureaucracy asked to do an impossible job. Talk to them - don't hide. The quicker you approach them and the more often you respond with changes in your situation, the more comfortable they will be in working with you.

Always get the names of the people you speak with and keep notes of what was said. The new commissioner of the IRS has asked that his employees stress "customer service." After all, isn't "service" part of their name?