Should the UK authorities be employing more tax inspectors?

While the thought of a tax inspector walking through your door tomorrow to go over your company accounts will fill many people with dread the truth is that HM Revenue and Customs is chronically short of tax inspectors and experienced staff. As the authorities look to increase tax rates across the board there is a feeling amongst many that employing more tax inspectors would ultimately allow the government to collect more tax at current rates and would indeed reduce the need to increase tax rates quite as much as people expect in the future.

If you take a step back and look at HM Revenue and Customs and compare this to the private sector, the private sector would take on more income producing stuff if the work was there so why is HM Revenue and Customs not doing this?

In simple terms it is the ever expanding size of the public sector which is causing negative headlines for the government and the investment of tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds into more tax inspectors would not go down well with voters. It is therefore easy to see that a more efficient tax collection service would significantly increase total revenues for HM Revenue and Customs assisting the government, businesses and the UK public. But who will be brave enough to make this move?