They are definitely gonna penalize you man. Your best bet is to get a tax attorney and see what your options are. At the very least keep you from getting garnished because you don't want to feel that hurt. Go ahead and get your taxes filed and then have your attorney set up a wage attachment to pay them off. I'm kind of in the same boat as you but I owe them more than that. I don't know if your 2012 will pay them off or not but if you was going to get a return, it's going to go back to what you owed them and like someone said above, $6,000 can turn into $10,000 really easy because you pay off the penalty, then the interest, then the principle. Good luck and sorry they caught up to you.