How-to Guides » Cut your tax bill by thousands

Tax may be an inevitable fact of life, but there's no reason to pay more than you have to!

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Check your tax code

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If you work for a company, your tax gets automatically deducted from your gross (before tax) income, according to your tax code - but the past year has seen a scandal in which millions of taxpayers have been allocated the wrong code. What’s more, taxpayers have been told by HMRC that they must work out for themselves if their code is correct.

Two key codes to watch out for are: BR, which signifies the imposition of an emergency tax code, meaning that you will be taxed on all of your income because your tax-free allowance has been taken away, and: DO, which means you will be taxed at the higher rate on all of your income.

Fortunately, checking your tax code is fairly simple. Ask your local tax office for a coding notice to ensure you are on the right code.