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iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

indiatoday.in

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Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#91

I don’t understand the difference in the pricing between the base iPhone and iPhone pro. It’s 50000 Rupees which is about $700, although in the US it’s only $300.

Even $300 is a big premium for what you get. Basically just an extra camera and a LIDAR sensor that nobody knows what to do with yet. Oh, and a shiny stainless-steel band around the edge. I think what Apple has realized is that a certain subset of their customers will always want the best model , no matter how little sense the price makes compared to the regular model. For some people, it will always be a status symb…

I would add to that a brighter screen, the base has twice the storage and the pro has better camera capabilities (that could actually be claimed to be 'pro'). When you equalise the storage, the price differential is about $200.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#92
On a much smaller scale, this is achieved in the US by going to a no sales tax state like Oregon or Delaware.

With the sales tax in Los Angeles at 10.25%, I’ve ended up queuing up large purchases together, buying a round trip ticket to Portland ($200-300) and hitting up the Apple Store, Target, Best Buy there. And get a free trip to Portland!

I’ve read the Christiana Mall in Delaware is especially popular for people living along the I-95 corridor for this very purpose.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#94
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and I feel that less than $1 per cigarette so somebody else enjoys 2nd hand smoke doesn't come even near to covering it.

Okay, how much do you think a cigarette should cost?

About $3.50

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's almost all taxes. I mean, that’s a good thing, right? Smokers should pay for the externalities their habit has on society as a whole.

Except smokers actually aren't actually a net cost to the healthcare system, because they die earlier. "complete smoking cessation would produce a net increase in health care costs" https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199710093371506

Not only healthcare costs, but also national pension costs. I remember a study was done a long time ago (20 years ago) and smokers were a net contributor to the gov't coffers.

They paid a lot in cigarette taxes (even when the taxes were lower).

Those that got lung cancer didn't cost that much to treat because, well, there weren't great treatments. Lung cancer progressed fast enough that they might spend their last week in the hospital, but that was it (versus say Alzheimers where they might require a handful of years of institutional care).

They contributed to their national pension their entire life and then either died before collecting it or died less than a decade in.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#96

This happened with the PS4 in Brazil. I had a friend who was unemployed and really going through a shitty spell. Then the news that you could go to Miami buy a PS4 and resell here came up. He started doing this all the time, and then going to the parks and whatnot. Eventually he started living there and working in tourism. Finally, he arranged to bring the capital to open a tourism agency in Miami and stay there for…

Crime pays. The system is working as designed.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#97
post #92

On a much smaller scale, this is achieved in the US by going to a no sales tax state like Oregon or Delaware. With the sales tax in Los Angeles at 10.25%, I’ve ended up queuing up large purchases together, buying a round trip ticket to Portland ($200-300) and hitting up the Apple Store, Target, Best Buy there. And get a free trip to Portland! I’ve read the Christiana Mall in Delaware is especially popular for people…

You pay the tax during tax season though, _right_ ?

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#98

How exactly do you avoid customs when flying back? Electronics is cheaper in US but every time I fly back to Europe they check my bags.

At least with Brazil, in practice you're allowed a single personal computer and phone. If you come back to the country with both your old phone and new phone you'll have problems. But if you leave without a phone or laptop, and come back with both, without packaging, with apps and files loaded and everything, and claim you'd brought them in Brazil originally, you're fine. So that's what people do. If you have a legit…

>With something like a PS4 it might be a little riskier, but you could probably spin some kind of story they'd accept, as long as it appears similarly used and not in packaging. ("I was visiting family and my nephew wanted to play PS4 so I brought mine for the week!")

Or you could say that you run Linux on that PS4 and that's your main PC.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#99
post #89
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

personal effects are non taxable across borders in most tax regimes so legally this is fine

True, but they often put stipulations on it. I know for Singapore, you had to have owned the item for at least 3 months. Otherwise it was considered to be a new item imported and duty needed to be paid. I have no idea how that was actually enforced.

Same, I believe, for Switzerland - you need to have (and be able to demonstrate if asked) owned the item for a set period of time before entering.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money

#100
post #86

Decent article explaining the prices, and also the influences of taxes and import duties. But the author kinda makes it sound like it’s Apples fault for their price ing in India. Really the government’s fault for imposing such high duties and taxes. I just don’t understand it from a morality perspective .

It's to encourage local production, which Apple itself does
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