Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Companies Act 1993

Miscellaneous

404: Purpose of imposing levies

You could also call this:

“Explaining why the government charges fees for using official registers”

The law allows the government to charge fees, called levies, for using different types of official registers. These registers are like big lists of information that the government keeps. Here’s why they do this:

All the different registers work together as one big system. They’re not separate from each other.

The government thinks it’s fair and makes sense to charge people who use these registers to help pay for them.

When deciding how much to charge, they look at how much it costs to run all the registers together, not just one at a time.

Money collected from people using one register can be used to pay for any of the registers. This is the most efficient way to pay for them.

The law says that only certain people, called “specified users”, have to pay these fees. You can find out who these people are by looking at Schedule 15 of the law.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=LMS791473.

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403: Validation of fees used to recover costs of other Companies Office registers, etc, or

“Confirming the legality of past fees for Companies Office services”

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405: Regulations relating to levies, or

“Rules for collecting money from certain groups to help pay for company registration costs”

Part 22 Miscellaneous

404Purpose of imposing levies

  1. The purpose of imposing levies by regulations under section 405 is to recognise that—

  2. the different registers listed in Schedule 14 operate financially as a single system of registers and not as separate registers; and
    1. all those registers should be funded, in part, through a levy imposed on specified users of each register, in a manner that is equitable, efficient, and justified; and
      1. applying the principles of equity, efficiency, and justification is properly undertaken having regard to the cost of administering the whole system of registers, not on the basis of the costs of administering individual registers; and
        1. money collected from specified users of 1 register can legitimately be used to meet the costs of operating any or all of the registers; and
          1. using money collected from specified users of 1 or more registers in the way provided in paragraph (d) is the most efficient way of financing the registers.

            1. In subclause (1), specified users means persons in a class of persons listed in Schedule 15 that are liable to pay a levy.

            Notes
            • Section 404: inserted, on , by section 4 of the Companies (Levies) Amendment Act 2022 (2022 No 70).