Research from Funding Options, the online business finance supermarket, also discovered that HMRC seized assets to recover £42.6m of outstanding debt this year, which is an increase on 175% from last year where debts were £15.3m.

Due to a power called ‘taking control of goods’, HMRC is entitled to seize assets from businesses to settle debts from businesses that did not pay their overdue tax bills.

The increase in the number of businesses affected as well as the value of the outstanding debt shows that businesses are struggling to pay these bills.

SMEs, whose access to bank lending has been reduced, are particularly at risk of having their assets seized. SMEs have a more unpredictable cashflow than larger businesses so it is harder for them to get the money at key points in the year, for example, to pay an unexpected tax bill.

Therefore, SMEs are now looking to alternative finance to help pay these bills, with products that deal specifically in funding for tax bills increasingly popular.

Conrad Ford, CEO of www.fundingoptions.com said: ‘Businesses must ensure they have sufficient funding in place to pay tax bills on time, without taking up capital from other aspects of the business.

‘Often small business owners aren’t aware of the many options available to them outside traditional bank lending - P2P lending, crowdfunding, asset finance and invoice finance as well as specialist products designed to finance tax bills can all be viable routes for SMEs to access the capital they need.

‘With pressure on HMRC to increase tax receipts, it’s becoming increasingly important that businesses make sure their tax affairs are in order and bill are paid on time, finance can play a large part in ensuring that this is the case.’