Every year UK taxpayers miss simple opportunities to avoid overpaying tax that in many ways could easily be avoided. In the current economic climate, saving money is more important than ever so act before the tax year ends on April 5. To help you, here are some saving tips to avoid falling into this trap.

1. Check your Tax Code
Make sure you have been paying the correct amount of tax during the past year. “40L” or “36K” may not make much sense to you, so check the accompanying documents to ensure you are on the correct tax code. Mistakes do happen and can go unnoticed for years, which may mean you’re overpaying or underpaying tax. If the latter happens you’ll be asked to repay the difference, so it’s in your interest to sort out errors as soon as possible.

2. Maximise your Personal Allowance
Ensure you are taking advantage of all personal allowances. This can be as simple as transferring the ownership of assets generating an income from a higher rate taxpayer to a non or basic-rate taxpayer. For married couples such transfers will usually be free from capital gains tax.

3. Claim what is Yours
If you’ve just stopped working for whatever reason, you may be able to claim back some of the income tax you have paid.  If you’re a non-taxpayer, register to get interest gross or get your tax back. The latter is particularly important for those on low incomes who can benefit from the 10% savings tax rate.

4. Use your Married Allowance
Make sure you utilise both sets of personal allowances and basic-rate bands. This often means transferring assets between spouses so investments are made by the spouse with the lowest tax rate. If you are a higher-rate taxpayer and your spouse is a lower-rate taxpayer, you could almost halve your tax bill and not have to pay any tax at all on these savings.

5. Make the most of tax efficient savings vehicles
Make the most of tax-efficient ISAs, pensions and savings plans from National Savings & Investments. You can invest £7,200 in an ISA each year, of which £3,600 can be in cash with the rest in stocks and shares. If you don’t have an ISA but keep money in a standard savings account, you should consider switching to take advantage of these tax breaks. Pensions contributions are made out of your untaxed income, so this effectively boosts contributions by 20% for basic-rate taxpayers and 40% for higher-rate taxpayers.

6. Inheritance Planning
This is where the taxman nets his biggest haul with many estates pay hefty death duties that could easily have been avoided with a bit of forward planning.Make a will and make sure both spouses use their IHT-free allowance. In the current tax year, people can bequeath up to £312,000 before inheritance tax is due.Those with large estates may want to take professional advice about setting up a trust or making gifts during your lifetime to further reduce the potential tax burden.