Editing HM Customs and Excise (section)

==Activities==
The three main functions of HMCE were [[Government revenue|revenue]] [[tax collection|collection]], [[Customs valuation|assessment]] and [[Crime prevention|preventive work]], alongside which other duties were performed.<ref name="Intro1971" />

===Revenue collection===
On behalf of [[HM Treasury]], officers of HM Customs and Excise levied [[customs|customs duties]], [[excise duties]], and other [[indirect tax]]es (such as [[Air Passenger Duty]], [[United Kingdom Climate Change Programme|Climate Change Levy]], [[Insurance Premium Tax (United Kingdom)|Insurance Premium Tax]], [[Landfill Tax]], [[Purchase Tax]] and [[Value-added tax (United Kingdom)|Value-added tax (VAT)]]).

===Assessment===
Officers spent significant amounts of time in docks, warehouses and depots and on board newly arrived ships assessing dutiable goods and cargoes. Specialist tools were provided e.g. for the measurement of containers or the [[specific gravity]] of alcohol.

===Preventive work===
HMCE was responsible for managing the [[import]] and [[export]] of goods and services into the UK; as such, its officers were active in the detection and prevention of attempts to evade the revenue laws, for example through [[smuggling]] or illicit [[Distilled beverage|distillation of alcohol]]. Since the early 17th century, the searching of vessels for illicit goods when undertaken by [[customs officer]]s has been called 'rummaging'.<ref>{{cite web|title=Rummage|url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rummage|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160926102210/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/rummage|url-status=dead|archive-date=26 September 2016|website=Oxford Living Dictionaries|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=2 March 2018}}</ref>

===Other===
For various reasons HMCE and its predecessors had accrued a variety of other responsibilities over the years, some of which had nothing to do with revenue collection and protection. Many of these additional duties pertained to the regulation of activities in UK coastal waters on behalf of HM Government (not least because HMCE had [[customs officer]]s stationed all around the UK coast). Thus at various times in the 20th century HMCE was involved in receiving, regulating or recording:<ref name="NARecords" /><ref name="Carson1972">{{cite book |last1=Carson |first1=Edward |title=The Ancient and Rightful Customs |date=1972 |publisher=Faber and Faber |location=London}}</ref>
* [[Import license|import and export licences]]
* trade [[statistics]] (since 1696)
* [[light dues]] (recorded since 1615)
* [[Receiver of Wreck|wrecks]] (statutory by 1713)
* [[embargoes]] 
* [[quarantine]] and other public health restrictions (since 1663)
* [[occupational licensing]]
* registration of [[moneylenders]]
* [[exchange controls]]
* [[ship registration]]
* [[immigration control]] (in smaller ports and airports)