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Comment by dschuler | Hacker News Reader

I did include CA sales tax (in Los Angeles) of 9.5%, vs the VAT-inclusive price in France/Germany/Italy, and the difference _after_ including those was about 30% higher in the EU. Germany was the lowest, probably because they temp. reduced their sales tax from 19% to 16%.

I can actually get a round-trip economy flight (pre-COVID and now) to LA just to buy a Mac mini, and save about $400. It's really.. unfortunate.

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It's not just sales tax, there's also import taxes no?

That's true, I'm comparing local purchase prices with currency conversion rates. The rest depends on your personal situation and tax jurisdiction.

No what I mean is that Apple pays import duties to bring the computer into the EU from its point of manufacture. This further increases the cost compared with the US or a duty-free zone like Hong Kong. 30% overall increase of price is what I would expect for import duties + VAT, so Apple isn’t overcharging here.

Oh ok, gotcha. I’m not trying to blame any entity here, just pointing out the price difference that’s larger than the sales tax difference between the EU and CA. Interestingly HK prices for iPhones are almost exactly California prices (within a couple of dollars) even though there is no sales tax in HK - that’s probably on Apple.

No import duty either. HK is considered an international transshipment zone with no tarrifs.

Pop down to Switzerland. More than USA, less than Eurozone, and 7.7% VAT.

Not for computers into Germany.

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