Millions lost in unclaimed credits
A new survey claims that Britons are not doing enough to take advantage of the tax breaks on offer.
Research by IFA Promotion reveals that 82 per cent of the UK's adults will waste a collective total of £7.6 billion through a failure to claim the tax credits to which they are entitled.
This represents a rise of £1.8 billion on 2005 and comes despite the fact that 31 million of us express our resentment over rising tax bills.
David Elms, chief executive of IFA Promotion argues: 'Whether through apathy or confusion, the failure to claim tax credits is just one way we're gifting unnecessary and vast sums of money to the taxman each year.'
He adds that 'over the past few years, the onus for managing tax affairs has shifted increasingly to the individual, but our awareness and action is not keeping pace, and so the mountain of tax waste keeps growing'.
Unused tax credits have now overtaken inheritance tax, which had been the biggest area of wastage in recent years. | 
