Britons to gift taxman record amount

By Jennifer Hill

LONDON (Reuters) - Britons are set to gift a record amount of money to the taxman by failing to take steps to reduce their tax liability, figures show.

Britons are expected to waste a total 9.3 billion pounds this year -- the most since Unbiased.co.uk, a Web site that promotes independent financial advice, started its "tax action" report 16 years ago.

That is almost 1.4 billion pounds more than the amount paid in unnecessary tax last year, and equates to an average of 290 pounds per person.

Inheritance tax -- one of the most penal in Britain, levied at 40 percent -- accounts for a large part of the expected wastage, despite a fifth of people naming it as the tax they most resent.

A total 1.9 billion pounds -- 360 million pounds more than in 2007 -- is expected to unnecessarily pour into the Treasury due to a failure to mitigate inheritance tax (IHT).

A growing number of people are being hit with IHT as the housing market boom has pushed many people beyond the threshold at which it is charged, currently 300,000 pounds.

David Elms, chief executive of Unbiased.co.uk, said: "We have seen a lot of talk about stealth taxes and IHT, but our figures prove that it hasn't changed the way people deal with this tax and too much money is still being wasted -- and practically gifted to the taxman -- a somewhat surprising result given the large amount of people who are dissatisfied with the current tax system."

More than half the population -- 34 million people -- are dissatisfied with the current tax regime, according to a poll of 3,084 people for Unbiased.co.uk, but 82 percent admit to doing nothing to reduce the amount they pay.