OPPOSITION congressmen yesterday said heads must roll because of the heavy shortfall in tax collection last year.

Even Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, they said, must not be spared from the implementation of the lateral attrition law.

Rep. Roilo Golez (Ind., Parañaque) said President Arroyo should personally evaluate the performance of Teves and his subordinates led by BIR Commissioner Lilian Hefti, her deputy for operations Nelson Aspe, and Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales.

"The law’s (lateral attrition) enforcement should also include officials from the Department of Finance who have direct supervision over the BIR. Kasama diyan si Teves," he said.

While the lateral attrition law of 2005 imposes legal sanctions for the failure of revenue-collecting agencies to meet their annual target collection, it also gives incentives if they exceed their targets.

Hefti replaced Jose Mario Buñag in June last year for failing to meet the collection target for the first quarter.

Buñag, who said he was a scapegoat for officials who were washing their hands of the responsibility, was sacked amid his rift with Teves over the P1.8 billion shortfall in the May revenue collections.

Golez said the failure of the two agencies to meet target collections has been an annual "catastrophe."

The BIR reportedly posted a P50 billion to P60 billion shortfall last year and the Customs, P17 billion to P20 billion.

BIR sources said Hefti’s office posted a shortfall of 45 percent, collecting only P5.9 billion of its P11.2-billion target for December 2007.

The figure was presented by OIC Assistant Commissioner for Collection Service Corazon C. Pungcog in her report titled Final Collection Performance 2007.

In the report, regional collections, which fall directly under Aspe’s supervision, collected only P23.15 billion from a target of P27.97 billion or a 17 percent shortfall.

Last week, Rep. Eric Singson (LP, Ilocos Sur), deputy speaker for Luzon, blamed graft and corruption for the 40 percent uncollected taxes from cigarettes and alcohol, saying the BIR and BoC collectors could be "pocketing" huge amounts of money amounting to huge losses for the government.

He said there is no need for new and additional taxes if only the BIR and BoC are doing its jobs in efficiently collecting taxes.