State pensioners given £3,815 each with one HMRC claim

You could get a huge £3,815 back from HMRC after some retirees have been temporarily shortchanged. The error impacts retirees making flexible withdrawals from their pensions.

Experts at AJ Bell say that pensioners could have been shortchanged by over a billion pounds in total due to a quirk in HMRC's systems. AJ Bell says that figures showed that in April, May and June this year Brits reclaimed £49million of money where they have overpaid tax on their pension withdrawals.

Nearly 13,000 reclaim forms were processed, with an average reclaim of £3,815.

This took the total amount of reclaimed tax to £1.5billion since 2015, when the problem first began.

However, the figures only capture those who fill in the relevant HMRC reclaim form.

Many Brits rely on HMRC to sort their end-of-year tax to get their money back. If you have been overtaxed, you can get your money back.

If you're planning to take a single withdrawal in a tax year, you can avoid being overtaxed by taking a notional withdrawal first.

This is when you make a small transaction which will be coded with the tax code for that "Month One" withdrawal.

Following this, HMRC should be able to issue the correct tax code to the second, bigger withdrawal.

However, if your pension provider only allows you to remove a larger amount, you might still need to claim the tax back on that amount.

If you'd rather claim the money back a different way, you can make your first withdrawal and then fill out a HMRC form.

After filling out the form, you should get your money back in 30 days.

Finally, if you don't do this, HMRC should put you back in the right tax position at the end of the financial year.