Customs and Excise Act 2018

Entry and exit of goods, persons, and craft - Assessment, payment, and recovery of duty - General responsibilities of chief executive, etc

110: Chief executive’s general obligation in relation to collection of duty

You could also call this:

"The boss of Customs must collect duty in a fair and reasonable way, using available resources."

Illustration for Customs and Excise Act 2018

The chief executive has a job to collect as much duty as possible, while following the law. You need to think about things like how much money and resources the chief executive has to do their job, and how important it is for people to pay their duty without being forced to. The chief executive also needs to consider how much it costs people to pay their duty and why the duty is being collected in the first place.

The chief executive has to balance all these things with their other responsibilities, like making sure people follow the rules. This rule applies even if there are other rules in the Act that might seem to contradict it. The chief executive's main goal is to collect the highest amount of duty possible, in a way that is fair and reasonable, and that takes into account all the other important factors.

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This page was last updated on 1 October 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM7039359.

Topics:

Money and consumer rights > TaxesGovernment and voting > Government departments

109: Responsibility to protect integrity of system for assessing and collecting duty, or

"People in charge of collecting tax must keep the system fair and honest."

111: Entry is assessment of duty by importer or licensee or owner, or

"Telling customs how much duty you think you owe for your goods"

Part 3Entry and exit of goods, persons, and craft
Assessment, payment, and recovery of duty: General responsibilities of chief executive, etc

110Chief executive’s general obligation in relation to collection of duty

The chief executive must secure the collection, over time, of the highest net revenue from duty that is practicable within the law, having regard to—
the resources available to the chief executive; and
the importance of promoting compliance, especially voluntary compliance, by all duty payers with this Act and any other enactment relating to any duty; and
the compliance costs incurred by duty payers; and
the objectives of imposing any duty; and
Customs’ other responsibilities and the resources needed to fulfil those other responsibilities.

Subsection (1) applies despite any other provision of this Act or any other enactment.