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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

#201

Post by triceratops »

throwawy42434 wrote: post #196
robotresearcher wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Public schools have been abandoned by everyone but the very poorest - the facilities are terrible even by 3rd world standards, and worse, the public schools push the eduction in the native languages, which is (very sadly) next to worthless economically in India. The above disempowerment of India's natives, their culture and languages, is the direct result of the Indian state continuing colonial policies of very unfai…

> worse, the public schools push the eduction in the native languages, which is (very sadly) next to worthless economically in India.

I hear this a lot but does it have to be so? AFAIK China, Japan, and South Korea also educate students in their native languages and that hasn't hindered their development.

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

#202

Post by throwawy42434 »

vshade wrote: post #177
wobbly_bush wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

This doesn't contradicts that lack of funding is a problem, at least in the country from where I come public school teachers are usually underpaid and it can be hard to attract and keep the good ones without it.

It isn't - public schooling was in a far better shape/quality 40-50 years back, when the Indian Boomers were growing up.

This was a time of war and food-shortages; funding clearly is not the problem.

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

#203

Post by aembleton »

reaperducer wrote: post #79
robertlagrant wrote: post #20

> 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…

For the USAians, Rs24000 is $325.78. By comparison, I paid $92.04 in sales tax for my new iPhone, and I am currently in a geography that is considered low-tax.

By comparison, in the UK you will pay £166.50 in sales tax, equivalent to $218. I don't think there is any import duty to pay [1].

1. https://madb.europa.eu/madb/euTariffs.htm?productCode=851712...

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

#204

Post by jsu32 »

rockyj wrote: 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…

"even 50%-60% in taxes"

in the US paying 60% in taxes is equivalent to 'not contributing your fair share" which is why Biden wants to take it even higher. I'm surprised how US has some of the highest income taxes (especially in places like CA and NYC) but people still think it's a low tax place.

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

#205

Post by 0559980836 »

sangnoir wrote: post #185
ericol wrote: post #124

Dude. 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…

This is not a tax issue, but induced by existence of dual exchange rates. I'm guessing due to the limits, most phone resellers have to obtain their US dollars from the black market at higher rates, resulting in higher local pricing. Only those who are well-connected or buy dollars in low volumes can get adequate sums at the official rate, and even then, the arbitrage opportunity may be too good to miss out on, which…

People have been doing this since before dual exchange rates were (re-)introduced a year ago. There's a bit of everything, really.

- Some shops operate at the "blue dollar" value, out of necessity because they buy the products they sell at that rate, or trying to obtain a bigger profit from the things they bought at the official rate.

- Some shops operate at the official rate, but their products just get crazy high taxes (cars, for example).

- Some shops operate at the official rate and sell their products at that rate approximately. Some big tech manufacturers fall under this category, Apple products being the biggest exception as shown above (but there are many others). Fun fact: the inflation and the option to pay these products in no-interest instalments sometimes make products cheaper than in the US, accounting for the future devaluation of the peso.

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

#206

Post by [deleted] »

triceratops wrote: post #201
throwawy42434 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public schools have been abandoned by everyone but the very poorest - the facilities are terrible even by 3rd world standards, and worse, the public schools push the eduction in the native languages, which is (very sadly) next to worthless economically in India. The above disempowerment of India's natives, their culture and languages, is the direct result of the Indian state continuing colonial policies of very unfai…

> worse, the public schools push the eduction in the native languages, which is (very sadly) next to worthless economically in India. I hear this a lot but does it have to be so? AFAIK China, Japan, and South Korea also educate students in their native languages and that hasn't hindered their development.

[deleted]

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

#207

Post by nkrisc »

thiagoeh wrote: post #165
nkrisc wrote: 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…

In Brazil is usual to hear in more educated circles the denomination "estadunidense", which is essentially the same thing as USAian. Or north-americans, when talking about the culture from the standpoint of Brazilians. It's far from true that no one cares.

That's fair, I might be wrong for sure. I'm still going to call myself American.

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

#208

Post by teatree »

teachrdan wrote: post #195
teatree wrote: post #186

I understand taxing an optional luxury item like iPhone to encourage local manufacturing, with all the cheap phones available it won't affect the common man too much. But the government here is bent on taxing everything as much as possible. Eg: The Prime Minister keeps harping about "Digital India" but computer components and laptops have an import duty of 80-100%. Does he have the money to build a fab in India ? Hel…

> its the poor who's children suffer the most Honest question: How do the poor (and their children) "suffer the most" from taxes on GPUs and iPhones?

Govt and low cost schools have outdated or sometimes no computers at all. Internet is the best means of learning today, they are deprived of it.

Heck even top universities don't have good infrastructure in India.

Our maid's daughter wants to take up CS after high school, she saw us working on laptops from a young age I guess, but her mother cannot afford to pay for college fees + a laptop + broadband.

India's silicon valley, Bangalore, cannot provide its residents uninterrupted power 24x7 in 2020, villages are lucky to get 5 hours of power a day. Can you believe large tech parks in Bangalore run on Diesel generators ?

There are hardly a few datacenters and associated jobs in India, reason - hardware and bandwidth is prohibitively expensive, cause - taxation. Think of all the small jobs that would be created in the surrounding ecosystem (foodcarts, cafes)

When the govt only talks and doesn't walk the walk, most high skilled Indians leave country due to lack of opportunities, not only would their spending create jobs more importantly it drains the country of mentors for the young.

China is going head to head with the US in AI and world class software products, despite their handicap in English, where is India ?

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

#209

Post by 908B64B197 »

hannofcart wrote: post #126
robertlagrant wrote: post #20

> 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.

I get the protectionist aspect, but are they re-investing the money from this tax to make manufacturing desirable in the country?

We're talking logistics improvement, stable electric grid, infrastructure and training programs to get an educated workforce. Or is it just contributing to some bureaucrat's pension fund?

In the same vein, I 100% agree with fuel taxes and green taxes... if the government can demonstrate 100% of the tax goes to finance alternatives that are useful to me.

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

#210

Post by fakedang »

speeder wrote: post #115
gilrain wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully your local civil services are not terribly affected by your dodging of taxes, in case you or someone you care about ever needs them.

Here in Brazil people think tax is theft, and that avoiding taxes is moral... Problem is, often they are not wrong, there is massive government corruption, and taxes are often used for unethical and wrong things, meanwhile actual services are often paid by the population themselves. For example: my family pay all our business and whatnot taxes correctly, because we don't want to get dragged into a crime spree (if you…

Does Brazil even use its military actively? Or is it just a tool to repress the Amazon natives?

Guess that's tax wasted too.

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