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Comment by orra | Hacker News Reader

That's basically illegal under EU law, to discriminate like that. It's a single market...

Not illegal at all and widely practised. Single market does not mean prices have to be the same everywhere.

And there's nothing to stop you from asking a friend to buy something in Germany, and shipping it to you, where VAT is 23% (Portugal smh).

Bocaue everyone has a friend in Germany willing to ship them stuff. /s

Plus, shipping a laptop across Europe as a person, is at least 20 Euros (more with insurance)

If a company offers better pricing to one market, it must make these offers accessible to everybody, regardless of nationality or country of residence. Apple don't let you buy apple.ie (Ireland) and ship to France.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...

Any exceptions have to be objectively justified, such as postage pricing. Definitely doesn't justify huge differences.

Companies have long flouted these rules, so they were recently tightened up.

Companies are not forced to ship to the whole EU. An Irish e-shop can provide shipping only to Ireland. As an EU citizen, you can go to Ireland and buy it for the Irish price, you won't be discriminated based on your citizenship or country of residence.

That's not what I said, and it's also not what we're talking about. We're specifically talking about Apple, who ship to customers all across the EU.

Single market yes, but VAT changes from country to country

For physical goods, VAT is charged according to the seller's country. So in this case that is not relevant.

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