Uk adults pay billions of pounds a year more tax than they need to. In fact, according to a survey for IFA Promotion, nine out of ten UK adults waste a total of £5.7bn a year in unnecessary tax. So Jonquil Lowe, co-author of the Lloyds TSB Tax Guide, offers some top tips here to keep cash in your pocket rather than handing it to the tax office. * Save £30 - use your ISA (Individual Savings Account) allowance. Everyone aged 16 and over can invest up to £3,000 in a cash ISA and the interest will be tax free. If you invested the full £3,000 at 4.5pc a year, you'd get £135 interest this year on which the tax would normally be £29.70. * Save £29 - arrange to work partly from home. Doing this once a week or once a month, your employer can pay you at least £104 a year tax-free to refund the extra home-related costs you incur as a result. If you're a basic rate taxpayer, you would need to earn £133 before tax to be left with £104 net. * Save £59 - make a Gift Aid donation. If you give to any charities or, say, your local church, and you are a basic rate or higher rate taxpayer, make sure you use the Gift Aid scheme. You get basic rate tax relief by deducting relief from the amount you pay. For example, if you want the charity to receive £100, you hand over just £78 and the charity claims the rest from the government. * Save £100 - file your tax return on time. If you are one of the nine million people who pay tax through self assessment, you'll have received a 2003-4 tax return. You must send this back no later than 31 January 2005. If you miss the deadline you are automatically fined £100. * Save £648 - get your employer to provide childcare. From next April, if your employer pays directly for your childcare or provides you with childcare vouchers, this benefit up to a maximum of £50 a week will be tax free. If you use childcare for, say, 46 weeks of the year, the yearly cost would be £2,300 but a basic rate taxpayer would need to earn £2,948 a year before tax to be left with that sum. * Save £792 - top up your pension savings. Nearly everyone can put up to £3,600 a year into a personal pension or stakeholder pension scheme. You get basic rate tax relief on this amount. So if you pay in the full £2,808, the government tops this up with a bonus of £792. Money invested for a pension grows largely tax-free and you can get a quarter of the proceeds back as a tax-free lump sum. * Save £1,692 - persuade your employer to set up a share scheme. Provided there's a formal scheme and you stick to the rules, you can receive shares in the company you work for without having to pay any income tax . With one type of scheme, called a share incentive plan, your employer can give you up to £6,000 of shares each year tax-free. You'd need to earn £7,692 in cash to match that if you are a basic rate taxpayer. If you transfer the shares to a stocks and shares ISA, personal pension or stakeholder scheme, you can also ensure any capital gain you make when you sell the shares is also tax free. * Save £1,804 - use your capital gains tax allowance. Everyone - children included - can make up to £8,200 a year in capital gains tax free. But all too often this allowance is completely wasted. A basic rate taxpayer who can use the whole allowance would save £1,804 tax this year . * Save thousands - make a will. When you die, some bequests and the first slice of what you leave are tax-free but anything more is taxed at a swingeing 40pc. With planning, you may be able to save a substantial sum in inheritance tax. | 
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