Individual Savings Accounts (ISA) are a great place to start off your savings, as after all, why bother paying more tax than you need to? ISAs allow your money to grow faster and should always be your first port of call when saving.

Here's 10 reasons why you shouldn't let your tax-free allowance pass you by:

1. Each year you are given a £3,600 cash limit in which to save without having to pay any tax on the interest you earn

2. If you don't use your allowance up within any one tax year you won't be able to roll it over onto next year, the policy is simply 'use it or lose it'

3. ISAs provide several great incentives to save, for example if you withdraw from your funds after using up your yearly allowance, you cannot replace that money. For example if you deposit £3,600, but then decide to withdraw £600, you can't then replace the £600 within the same tax year.

4. As well as Cash ISAs, you can also open Stocks and Shares ISAs, allowing you to put money into an investment and pay no tax on your returns. These ISAs can be risky, but the returns can be substantially more than income from a Cash ISA.

Like a Cash ISA, you get a £3,600 limit to invest, but you can use your cash ISA limit in an investment ISA, therefore investing upto £7,200, or a combination of the two, i.e. £2,000 in a Cash ISA, and £5,200 in an investment ISA. However, this does not work the other way round – the maximum amount you can put into a cash ISA within any one tax year is £3,600.

5. Some providers offer bonus rates for leaving your money untouched for a specified period, so not only can you earn higher returns, but you have even more of an incentive to save.

6. Your cash ISA is a very safe investment, and all banks operating in the UK provide at least £50,000 protection (£100,000 per joint account), should your provider fall into financial difficulty.

7. Most providers offer an ISA that allows you to start saving from as little as £1 and you can make unlimited deposits up to the £3,600 yearly limit, so comparing a range of providers for the best isa rates will allow you to earn the greatest returns.

8. The allowance runs in-line with the tax year, so if you haven't used up your allowance yet you have until April 6th to open an ISA, then you can deposit another £3,600 after this date.

9. If you already have an ISA but have seen better rates else-where, you can transfer to another provider by filling out a transfer form.

10. Your whole balance will be benefiting from tax-free interest, so after 10 years you could have £36,000, earning some great returns.

There are some great ISAs out there offering rates of up to 7 times more than the current Bank of England Base rate. Check them out at Which4U