For people already in debt—especially unsecured debt—taxes can make an already unpleasant situation even worse by throwing further financial burden on their back.

But there is some hope in all of this monetary doom and gloom. When it comes to taxes, some of that debt a person has can actually work to their advantage. That’s right—in some cases, you can make your debt, or at least the interest on it, work for you.

The Tax Code permits deductions only for certain varieties of interest. This makes debt management more important than ever, because you are basically penalized by the IRS whenever you have interest that falls into the nondeductible category.

Home-Mortgage Interest:

You are allowed an itemized deduction for interest on up to $1 million worth of mortgages used to acquire or improve your main personal residence and one other home.

Interest on Home-Equity Loan:

You can claim an itemized deduction for interest on home-equity loans totaling up to $100,000…This $100,000 figure are above and beyond the $1 million explained above. So you can have up to $1.1 million of debt against your first and second homes and still deduct the interest.

Two warnings: First, the home-equity debt, when piled on top of your “regular” mortgage, cannot exceed the fair market value of the property. For example, say your first mortgage is $150,000 and your home is worth $225,000. You may be able to get a $100,000 home-equity loan, but you can only deduct the interest on $75,000.

Second, interest on home-equity loans is deductible for alternative minimum tax purposes only if you use the proceeds to acquire, construct or improve a first or second residence.

College-Loan Interest:

Not too long ago, Congress finally gave recent students a much-needed tax break for interest on loans used to pay for college. But it comes with limitations, and those with high-incomes may not be eligible. If you fall into the ineligible category, you may consider taking out a home-equity loan instead. You have a decent shot at being able to deduct the interest, as explained above.

Interest on 401(k) Loans:

This is generally nondeductible regardless of how you use the money. Sorry. A general rule of thumb is to not really consider taking out a 401(k) loan unless you are sure you’ll be able to pay it back on time and in full.

Interest on Car Loans, Credit Cards and Other ‘Consumer Debt’:

Unless you are borrowing to finance business expenditure—like a car used in your sole-proprietorship business—tax breaks are usually not attainable.

A licensed tax attorney or other tax professional would be able to give further details on which types of interest on debt is able to be written off, and a savvy use of something like home equity loans to pay off other non-deductible debt interest could be an avenue to getting one a little bit closer to financially whole again.