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Comment by cbovis | Hacker News Reader

So $400 equals roughly £320 and yet the retail price on the UK store is £419 🧐

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se/4.7-inch-...

As always, US pries are ex-tax (meaning state sales taxes are added on and can be as much as 10% depending on city and state). Most other places (UK included) as inc-tax. If you take out the 20% VAT you get to 349 GBP, which is ~437 USD at current exchange rates. That's not that far off.

Vat is applied in the price in the UK, and sales tax is at checkout in the US.

Interesting, I'd find that super annoying as a consumer that's used to seeing the full price (ex. delivery) upfront. Is this standard practice for online US stores?

It's standard practice in the US, full stop.

All stores in the US do this, online or brick and mortar.

There’s probably more than 10k potential sales tax rates in the US, so you get used to it.

It is not like accountant does not calculate and pay the tax for each tax jurisdiction anyway.

It is annoying but taxes in the US are based on locality, so they involve state and municipal sales taxes, so it would be impossible to list one price for every customer.

Vat accounts for most the difference, plus any increase to buffer currency volatility and cover the extra consumer rights.

399$ equals 365.88€. With German VAT it's 435.40€ which is somewhat close to the 479€ Apple is asking for.

Where "somewhat close" means more than 10% more expensive, same as for the UK.

Maybe US consumers get a device subsidy because they are expected to buy more of the expensive apps and services, sort of like in a razor/blade model?

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