Contractors and other professionals must make an effort to take proper interest in their tax payments, experts have said, or they could lose money.

John Whiting, tax policy director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation has said that not enough people take a proper interest in their tax payments.

"Basically, too many people assume that PAYE [pay as you earn] will get their tax right and therefore don't take any interest in it. Therefore it is not surprising that when asked the majority said, 'Oh, I don't know - it's nothing to do with me," he elaborated.

This comes after a poll by MyVoucherCodes.co.uk said that 57 per cent of people do not know what their tax code is or how much gets taken from their wages each month.

Additionally, 43 per cent of people admitted they did not know how much National Insurance they paid and almost three-quarters of people said they do not check the money that leaves their bank account.