<prompt> Human: I actually came here a few months back asking for advice on how to pay down my credit card debt. Most suggested to start with the highest interest cards and work my way down. I have six credit cards and owed about 30k but since then I have paid off one card that had a balance of 6k and one for 2k. Still have a long ways to go and my goal is to pay them all off by the end of 1st qtr of 2015. But I also owe taxes from 2009 in the amount of 41kowed 50k. Im currently on a payment plan with monthly withdraws from my checking account. But I just checked and they are charging me a whopping 25 interest on each payment. Should I stop using my funds to pay off my credit cards and focus it all on paying off my income taxes, or should I continue the same route paying off the credit cards and then give extra payments on the taxes? I dont plan to buy a house or car anytime soon.  <response>: Im currently on a payment plan with monthly withdraws from my checking account. But I just checked and they are charging me a whopping 25 interest on each payment.IRS employee here:The current interest rate on unpaid individual taxes is 3 per year, and the rate can be adjusted quarterly. The Failure to Pay FTP penalty rate is 12 per month computed on the unpaid tax liability. With a formal IA, the FTP rate is generally reduced to 14 per month. The FTP is calculated on the unpaid tax, and the interest is calculated on the unpaid tax and penalties.Payments you make are applied to the tax first, not like a mortgage or car payment. Your payment reduces the tax every month, which reduces the accrued penalties and interest for that month.If you are referring to the monthly IA reminder notice, the figures you see for PI are the running total of accruals, not the monthly charge.Thank you for reading. 