May be government hasn't really caught up to phone import but if I bring in a brand new computer from outside India I have to pay custom duty on that.
iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
121–130 of 259 posts
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#122Apple still has the audacity to not open a single store in India.
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#123While I can squint and say that iPhones are probably a luxury item, and hence worthy of higher taxes, these exorbitant taxes extend to laptops as well. I'm again not talking about Macbooks, just a cheap ASUS I might need for work or study. This I think is indeed counterproductive, considering that bulk of India's GDP comes from the services industry.
Enabling the populace to acquire computing resources cheaply will help if the powers that be want to establish a knowledge economy.
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#124Dude. Hold my beer.
In Argentina, pre pandemic there were people that actually went shopping to Miami, because getting anything Apple - be it an iPhone or a laptop - was cheaper that way.
The iPhone 12 is not for sale here, but let's use the iPhone 11 as an example. In the only "official" store I could find it [0], the price is 184.299 pesos (yes, 184 thousand). If you check the "official" US dolar rate [1] it is around 80 pesos.
But hear me out: The country has so little reserves, that officially buying dollars is limited to 200 dollars per person per month. If you buy something using your credit card outside of the country - be it online or in person - this limit does not apply, but in both cases you have "extra" taxes to pay (Buying or spending dollars is called "dolar turista"). the final rate for this is around 137 pesos (again, [1])
Let's use 140 as the CC rate, for rounding. Considering the same iPhone 11 is around 630 dollars in Amazon, the price in "dolar turista" is 88.060 pesos.
that still leave us around one hundred thousand pesos left to the current street price of the phone. considering I can currently get tickets to Los Angeles [2] for around 60K pesos, that more or less gives me ample room for having a short US holiday when getting the phone (Supposing I can get the VISA to enter the country ;) ).
BTW the reason for this phone to be so expensive is that there's a black market rate for the US dollar (Called the "blue" dollar) and it's rate is currently around 180 pesos. Using this rate, plus the normal taxes and stuff when importing things, we get close to the street price.
[0] https://tienda.personal.com.ar/iphone
[2] https://promociones-aereas.com.ar/2020/10/los-angeles-flexib...
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I came to say this, but since you already said, another information: Some years ago a lawmaker calculated the taxes for game consoles and concluded they are 273% of the US price. Also when Sony was heavily bashed for the price of Playstation 4 at launch, people claiming they were price gouging, Sony blamed taxes, so I went and calculated the taxes myself, as if my store would sell it (I own a store but sell other stu…
Yup. It's actually remarkable to me that the Brazilian government continues to add these taxes that, last I checked, were highest in the world. The original justification was that it would spur domestic manufacture of computers, consoles, laptops, etc. Obviously that hasn't happened. All it's done is make anything involving computing ridiculously expensive. I truly don't understand why there isn't democratic pressure…
Tariffs and taxes are an addiction. Extremely easy to implement, difficult to repeal. That money collected is being used by someone and they will fight to continue receiving it.
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#126> It is no secret that the taxes and duties that are applied to imported phones are highest in India. The taxes are so high that for an important iPhone that you will end up paying an average tax of Rs 24,000 for something like an iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Mini. > However, despite the sky-rocketing prices, iPhone still sells best in India and the buyers give whatever price Apple asks them to pay. So for a business, that…
I doubt that the taxes from import of electronics is significant enough for it to be a 'great deal' for the Indian Government. I think their intended purpose is to promote/protect local manufacturing.
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#127Some people will be amazed by taxes, I'm by how cheap flights are.
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#128Dude. Hold my beer. In Argentina, pre pandemic there were people that actually went shopping to Miami, because getting anything Apple - be it an iPhone or a laptop - was cheaper that way. The iPhone 12 is not for sale here, but let's use the iPhone 11 as an example. In the only "official" store I could find it [0], the price is 184.299 pesos (yes, 184 thousand). If you check the "official" US dolar rate [1] it is aro…
I have often heard the anecdote of Argentinians flying to North America for shopping. But why is Chile not used for these purposes? Chile doesn’t have the import-substitution policies of Argentina, and in my visits to Chile I didn't feel that the country was not significantly more expensive than the USA.
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#129Dude. Hold my beer. In Argentina, pre pandemic there were people that actually went shopping to Miami, because getting anything Apple - be it an iPhone or a laptop - was cheaper that way. The iPhone 12 is not for sale here, but let's use the iPhone 11 as an example. In the only "official" store I could find it [0], the price is 184.299 pesos (yes, 184 thousand). If you check the "official" US dolar rate [1] it is aro…
South American countries bend over backwards in order to not tax income, so consumption gets taxed to ridiculous levels and these absurd situations arise.
And a foreign reserves crisis doesn't help either.
Re: iPhone 12 Pro so costly in India, you can fly to Dubai to buy it and save money
#130Earlier 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.
neither do they ;)