Back state taxes

What is the name of your state? Mo.

My husband just recieved a summons to appear in court April 20th. over $5,113.00 in back state taxes for the years of 1998 and 1999. These were the two years after his divorce. I don't understand the lingo in the letter so I have a few questions.

Is it too late for the state except an offer for a payment plan?
How will this effect his credit?
Is it too late at this point to try and rectify the situation?
Will they try and come after me?
Will they come after the house for this amount?
What other options do we have?

My husband is a teacher and I am a waitress and we are in debt to our eyeballs with student loans.
However, we pay our bills on time and have not merged our finances due to his bad credit history. We were trying to repair his bad credit until this letter came in the mail.

I'm jumping out of my skin about this, can you gimme any advice?

Contact a tax attorney in your state.

If he got a court summons for $5000, he's been ignoring them for some time now, I would imagine.

This is not something to handle on your own, regardless of whether or not you think you can't afford an attorney. You can't afford NOT to have one at this point.

Snipes

Thanks.
What are we looking at? What would be the worst thing that could happen?