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

indiatoday.in

151–160 of 259 posts

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

#151
post #131

A lot of people in here are saying - oh I had to do this is Germany or Denmark or USA as well. Which is fair, but what irks me is that in India which has pretty high taxation in all departments (see Petrol/Gasoline) the tax you pay gives you ZERO benefit. No healthcare, education or unemployment benefits etc. Also on top of this, due to the corrupt system, if you need anything from any govt. agency you will need to p…

> Under various articles of the Indian Constitution, free and compulsory education is provided as a fundamental right to children aged 6 to 14. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_India Is this not working out in practice, in your view?

As someone has mentioned in the comments in this thread, it is easy to pass laws & schemes sitting in a comfortable office. The implementation which takes resources, efficient distribution, competence and leg work is another story.

Anyways, I do not want to be too critical of anyone. My knowledge is limited to a few families I know and the few cities I have lived in. India is huge and hard to describe in a few sentences.

Finally, to clarify, I am not the guy who would buy an iPhone or go to Dubai. I am a lowly programmer, happy with my $250 Android which I use for 2-3 years.

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

#152
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is USAian?

It's a term people use to either be funny, or it's because they're somehow offended that people from USA use the demonym "American" even though there are other countries in the Americas, yet despite the fact that no one else in those countries seems to care because they have their own demonyms they use. The former are just having a laugh, and the latter are looking for things to be offended by. I don't know which cam…

Or they might be USians themselves, trying to distance themselves from their country being so imperialist.

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

#153
post #141
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a term people use to either be funny, or it's because they're somehow offended that people from USA use the demonym "American" even though there are other countries in the Americas, yet despite the fact that no one else in those countries seems to care because they have their own demonyms they use. The former are just having a laugh, and the latter are looking for things to be offended by. I don't know which cam…

I don't think you know many people from Latin America. A lot of them will absolutely not like American to refer to the USA only. Especially as the USA imperialism has done so much damage in many places there. It is not as strong as say the Macedonian debate but it is very real.

So if I speak to someone from Colombia or Brasil I should expect them to say they are American?

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

#154
post #131

A lot of people in here are saying - oh I had to do this is Germany or Denmark or USA as well. Which is fair, but what irks me is that in India which has pretty high taxation in all departments (see Petrol/Gasoline) the tax you pay gives you ZERO benefit. No healthcare, education or unemployment benefits etc. Also on top of this, due to the corrupt system, if you need anything from any govt. agency you will need to p…

Are taxes really that high compared to other countries? India has a tax to gdp ratio of 10%, compared to 25% in the US and 40% in the EU. Maybe you are underestimating just how much taxes are required to fund an effective welfare state?

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

#155
post #141
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a term people use to either be funny, or it's because they're somehow offended that people from USA use the demonym "American" even though there are other countries in the Americas, yet despite the fact that no one else in those countries seems to care because they have their own demonyms they use. The former are just having a laugh, and the latter are looking for things to be offended by. I don't know which cam…

I don't think you know many people from Latin America. A lot of them will absolutely not like American to refer to the USA only. Especially as the USA imperialism has done so much damage in many places there. It is not as strong as say the Macedonian debate but it is very real.

That may be the case, you're not wrong about what the US has done in Latin America. That said, I've never in my life heard anyone from Latin America call themselves American. Now that's just my experience, so I'm open to being proven wrong.

When I lived in Costa Rica for a time, I was only ever "Americano" and everyone from there were "ticos" or "costarricense." Though to be fair, Costa Rica has pretty much been spared of American meddling.

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

#156

> 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…

"However, despite the sky-rocketing prices" Not despite. People don't understand the Apple brand.

People will really pay anything for status over functionality.

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

#157

The article excludes the cost of import duty, and other taxes (see daedalus's comment). It is a false argument to say that if I didn't pay tax things could be cheaper eg. if I break the law I can get a cheaper iPhone. Getting caught for breaking the law is a stochastic system, but the expected value is lower than most people think. Edit: How far are people willing to take this? Should we share an article saying someo…

Flying somewhere else to buy something is not paying tax, and it doesn't break the law.

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

#158
post #150
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of it has to do with corruption. There was a time when I was trying to run an actual journalistic quality blog about gamedev, and I interviewed a bunch of people, some of them almost slipped out stuff, and one talked to me off the record, basically he claimed a certain Brazillian company that has a license from a certain japanese company to manufacture some 8-bit and 16-bit consoles, lobbyed very hard for the ta…

I wonder if this is the NES-clone company you're mentioning is the same one that also lobbied for imported cell-phones to be taxed harder, and of course tried to prevent Apple from selling the iPhone in Brazil by registering its trademark.

NES is not 16 bit, and they don't make clones, they are licensed to make official consoles on behalf of the foreign company.

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

#160
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the GP is complaining about the delivery of said welfare because at least on paper that welfare should be happening. Yet GP believes there are nearly zero benefits. Therefore, I wonder if there is a "disconnect" between what is suppose to happen and what actually happens on the ground.

India is country with lots of poor people, so sometimes that money is not enough to have decent services for upper middle class citizens not feel like paying a lot for poor services. It is one of the problems of my home country, corruption is problem as well, but sometimes you're just paying lots of money because lots of people are paying nothing or very little.

It's a myth that the lack of government services are solely due to lack of funding or budget deficit. One of the original complaints in the thread was about government-provided healthcare and education. Government schools & hospitals exist, but they aren't exactly known for their quality apart from a few niche ones like IITs, IIMs, AIIMs. So is the issue that lack of funding is preventing these public services from being effective? We could look at any independent report to find the problems. A search on this issue brings up https://yourstory.com/2017/09/india-public-education-system?..., it's not thorough report but it's a start.

This brings to light another problem - unlike the developed countries, in India the average citizen doesn't even know the specifics of things that can be improved because there are hardly any independent organizations which raise awareness about specific policies, or which publish easy to digest reports for the general public to become better informed.

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