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Comment by soneil | Hacker News Reader

That's almost entirely Sweden having a high tax rate though.

I just priced out an M2 MBA with ram & ssd maxed out. $2499 USD in the US and 33009kr in Sweden. $2499 is 26163kr, +25% VAT is 32705kr. So you're paying 304kr / $29 more than the US price.

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There's a sales tax in the US too. 7.25% in CA, on top of the product price.

Protip: Delaware has no sales tax.

Oregon too!

Oregon as well.

Many states have no sales tax.

There are only 5, Alaska, New Hampshire, Montana, Delaware, and Oregon. And the only one with a decent size city and airport is Oregon, but even then, it does not have significant international flights (though close enough to San Francisco and Seattle airports).

I guess New Hampshire has an Apple Store 45min from Boston airport, and Delaware has one about the same time from Philadelphia airport.

Of course. But when people are comparing EU & US prices they're usually not accounting for that either - just the price on the site. And it's too easy to miss out that a) european prices are advertised inclusive of sales tax, and b) we lean towards much higher taxes.

So just going "what's that in dollars" either ignores the real discrepancy, or at the very least, misplaces the blame.

Also, fun fact - since I did that math 3 hours ago, SEK has changed enough to wipe out that $29. Right now, (33009 * 0.8) SEK in USD = US$2460.46, making the pre-tax price in Sweden cheaper than the pre-tax price in the US.

Chicago has 10.25% but if you’re flying to the US to buy a laptop you’re gonna go to a non-sales tax state e.g. OR, MT, DE, etc

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