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Customs and Excise Act 2018

Preliminary provisions - Definitions, application, and transitional provision

7: Application of Act to postal articles

You could also call this:

"How the law applies to letters and parcels sent through the post."

Illustration for Customs and Excise Act 2018

This Act applies to postal articles, like letters and parcels, and the goods inside them, in the same way it applies to other goods. You need to follow the regulations made for this purpose. When a postal article arrives in a Customs-controlled area, it is treated as if it has been given to a Customs officer.

The law treats a postal article as one item, even if it has many separate parts. Regulations can say that many separate postal articles can be treated as one item sent to one person. This is true even if the articles are addressed to different people.

Regulations can also say who is considered the importer or exporter of postal articles and the goods inside them, you can find more information about this by looking at the related legislation.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM7039193.

Topics:
Money and consumer rights > Consumer protectionTransport and travel > Postal servicesGovernment and voting > Customs
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Part 1Preliminary provisions
Definitions, application, and transitional provision

7Application of Act to postal articles

  1. This Act applies to postal articles, and goods contained in postal articles, in the same way that it applies to other goods, subject to regulations made for the purposes of subsection (3).

  2. For the purposes of this Act, a postal article is treated as being produced or delivered to a Customs officer when it is brought into a Customs-controlled area.

  3. Regulations may do any of the following:

  4. provide that any separate postal articles (and the goods contained in them) may be treated as a single postal article consigned to a single person (whether the postal articles are addressed to the same person or different persons):
    1. prescribe the persons who are treated as the importers or exporters of those postal articles or goods.

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