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Was hoping they might have taken the chance to drop the price in the UK to bring it more in line with the US price (a bit above the US price due to VAT of course). Without that change I refuse to buy one.

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AFIK, their prices are pretty standard across the world excluding import tariffs, sales taxes and other state-imposed costs. I live in China, where imports are taxed heavily and as a result Apple computers cost nearly 25% more than in the US. In Hong Kong, however, there are no such import taxes and the prices are the same as in the US.

I sincerely doubt Apple is the culprit here.

I havent' done the math recently but even if you assume no sales tax in the US and factor in the 20% VAT in the UK the difference is still large.

In fact lets do it quickly for an Air. In US its $1600 which is pretty much £1000. UK is £1349. US won't have sales tax whilst VAT is 20%, so thats part of the difference but there's an additional £150 overhead. It varies between products and has been documented online before. Other companies do it but I find it pretty blatant with apple products and so tend to avoid their computers.

Here in Brazil the 15" base model costs $ 3,784.00. The same model in the US costs $ 1,799.00.

Taxes are ridiculous around here.

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