Under the Business Payment Support Service, businesses have been able to reschedule debt payments to the government.

However, some companies that have deferred payment have then gone into administration or liquidation, leaving large debts behind with no benefit to HMRC.

Following the administration of TPF in February, the administrator reported that HMRC was owed around £5m. From this month, HMRC has requested an Independent Business Review (IBR) for all requests of more than £1m, in order to better monitor companies that may end up closing.

The IBR must be paid for by the business. It will include current trading and financial position, profit and cashflow projections, business and financial strategies, management systems, and funding and banking arrangements.

Colin Roberts, managing director at Business Forms Express, insisted that the £1m figure should be a lot lower.

He said: "It's obviously there to protect the Inland Revenue, but we all get helped out, so it is a positive rather than a negative.

"It would stop the big guns from playing the game, but hopefully it will go lower – even £500,000 would be better, although £1m isn't a bad start."

Gary Lee, partner at insolvency practitioner Begbies Traynor, said it was likely the government would lower the minimum amount of debt that a company could have before it was forced to take an IBR. Although he conceded that there would be a threshold lower limit because of the cost of an IBR.

Lee said: "The government is basically saying that the option to delay payment is still there, as long as companies go about it in the right way. A lot of companies use it as a way of financing the business.

"It will allow the government to identify a problem sooner. Insolvency practitioners are always called in too late, if we get to see the business earlier we may be able to find an alternative solution."