What savers must do now before a Labour Budget targets their nest eggs: SYLVIA MORRIS

• The essential Isa guide: What you need to know about tax-free saving 

Take cover. Our savings are likely to be in the line of fire over the next five years as the new Labour government turns its guns on finding more money.

We will probably have to wait until the first Budget — which is likely to take place in September — to find out whether crucial savings allowances will be hit.

Easy pickings will be the amount you can earn in interest before paying tax, known as the personal savings allowance, and the upper £20,000 limit you can funnel into cash Isas.

Until then, it’s unclear if either are in the Chancellor’s crosshairs. But in the face of uncertainty, cash Isas should be every saver’s first port of call. 

This is because once your money is in your cash Isa, you won’t have to pay any tax on your interest.

Gone are the days when easy-access Isas paid much less than similar ordinary savings accounts. 

The average rate on Isas is 3.33 per cent against 3.11 per cent on taxable accounts according to rate scrutineers MoneyfactsCompare. 

Currently, you can save up to £20,000 each year into cash Isas, which work in the same way as ordinary savings accounts. 

With top rates of 5 per cent, that’s up to £1,000 in tax-free interest if you max out your Isa this year — £200 sheltered from the taxman if you pay basic rate tax on your interest and £400 for higher-rate payers.

> Check the best cash Isa rates in our independent savings tables 

How to protect your savings

Move as much as you can from your ordinary easy-access account into a cash Isa. It might not benefit you now, but it could in the years ahead.

If you are among the millions of savers who have your easy-access money with your High Street bank, don’t just transfer it to their equivalent cash Isa; they pay dismal rates of as little as 1.2 per cent while others pay around four times as much. 

Go for a flexible type of easy-access Isa as these prevent you from being penalised if you need to access your money.

The flexible accounts let you take money out and replace it without affecting your annual £20,000 Isa allowance — as long as you replace it in the same tax year. The best rate comes from the app-based Chip Cash Isa at 5.1 per cent

If you prefer an online account, then Ford Money at 4.6 per cent on £1 is a good choice. One big advantage is the bank pays the same rate to all savers in the account.

Why you need a flexible Isa

As savings tax has stopped being a threat and become a painful reality, I've become a big fan of flexible Isas, writes This is Money's Simon Lambert. 

A flexible Isa allows you to take money out and pay it back in without using up part of your annual Isa allowance. The only caveat being that you must replace the cash in the same tax year. 

They are ideal for those with larger cash pots and the financial firepower to fill their Isa, but work brilliantly for everyone else too.

The reason for this is that they help us adjust our financial behaviour to avoid savings tax.

Most savers can't fill their full annual £20,000 Isa allowance, yet we still tend to put cash that we might dip into in taxed easy access savings accounts.

The limited nature of the Isa allowance makes us think we must protect it and only use cash Isas for money we won’t withdraw.

A flexible cash Isa turns that upside down and means as long as you pay the money back in during the same tax year, you have no such worry. So, now you have a tax-free savings pot to dip in and out of.

But with rates higher and the personal savings allowance stuck at £1,000 for basic rate taxpayers and just £500 for higher rate taxpayers, it’s become much easier to fall into the savings tax trap.

With a savings rate of 5 per cent, a basic rate taxpayer needs just £20,000 in cash now to breach the allowance, while a higher rate taxpayer needs £10,000.

Meanwhile, if you pay 45p tax, you get no personal savings allowance at all - and these additional rate taxpayers are being hammered on savings interest tax.

Some of the top easy access cash Isa deals are flexible, as we highlight above. To me, it's a no-brainer.