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Customs and Excise Act 2018

Entry and exit of goods, persons, and craft - Assessment, payment, and recovery of duty - Charges on goods

129: Duty is charge on goods

You could also call this:

"You must pay a fee called duty when you bring goods into New Zealand."

Illustration for Customs and Excise Act 2018

When you bring goods into New Zealand, you have to pay duty on them. The duty is a charge on the goods until you pay it. If you do not pay the duty on time, the chief executive can take the goods from you and sell them to get the money for the duty. The chief executive can do this even if you have already sold the goods to someone else, but only if the person who bought the goods knew that the duty had not been paid. If you buy goods from someone who has not paid the duty, and you do not know that the duty is owing, then the chief executive cannot take the goods from you to sell them for the duty, as explained in section 130. In this case, a purchaser is someone who buys the goods from the person who should have paid the duty, or someone who buys the goods from that person's buyer.

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Topics:
Money and consumer rights > TaxesTransport and travel > Importing and exporting goods
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128: Chief executive to pay interest on duty refunded on appeal, etc, or

"Get interest on your refund if you overpaid duty and win an appeal"

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130: Possession of goods if person claims to be purchaser for value without knowledge, or

"What happens if you buy something fairly, but didn't know taxes were owed"

Part 3Entry and exit of goods, persons, and craft
Assessment, payment, and recovery of duty: Charges on goods

129Duty is charge on goods

  1. The duty on any goods is a charge on those goods until the duty is fully paid.

  2. If duty charged on any goods is not paid at, or within, the time for payment given under this Act, the chief executive may (whether or not the property in the goods has passed to a third party)—

  3. take possession of the goods; and
    1. sell them or any part of them in satisfaction or part satisfaction of the charge.

      1. Subsection (2) does not apply as against a purchaser of the goods for valuable consideration and without knowledge that the duty was owing and unpaid.

      2. In this section and section 130, purchaser means—

      3. a person (other than a person liable to pay the duty) who acquired the goods from a person liable to pay the duty; or
        1. a subsequent purchaser of the goods.

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