[Pythonmac-SIG] the iBook's irresistible charms

[Bob Ippolito]

On Jan 7, 2004, at 7:01 AM, Dinu Gherman wrote:

> Alex Martelli:
>
>> True!  But that goes for ALL sort of products -- the drop in USD/EUR 
>> exchange
>> rates over the last year isn't really reflected in most retail pricing
>> (making shopping in the US for all sort of reasonably transportable 
>> stuff
>> more and more attractive to us Europeans).  VAT also plays an 
>> important role:
>> a 12" entrylevel iBook is EUR 1200 _VAT included_ here, that's 
>> 1000+VAT,
>> while the 1100 USD price excludes sales taxes (typical sales taxes 
>> being 5% or
>> so, but some states may not have any), which explains part of the 
>> difference.
>
> True, but if I remember correctly in the U.S. there are strange
> ways to minimize/bypass things like VAT by having stuff shipped
> to you from a different state (which certainly helps the transport
> and logistics industries).

There's three ways to get around US sales tax that I'm aware of (but 
I'm no expert):

(a) You're a reseller.  Government issues you a reseller id, you should 
be able to convince companies to exempt you from sales tax with this id 
(but it's a hassle).
(b) You're a non-profit.  I'm not really sure about this one because 
I've never been directly involved with a non-profit, but I believe they 
get the same sort of treatment as a reseller does (except they're not 
expected to resell the product).
(c) You're in a state that the company does have a presence in.  Sales 
tax is by state.  Apple has stores just about everywhere, so this 
doesn't really work.

The best way I've found to get cheap Apple stuff is to find 9 friends 
who want to purchase machines and sign up for ADC Premiere (which is 
also awesome if you're starting a new mac-based company, whether or not 
you develop software ;).  You get 10 hardware discounts, which in the 
US ends up being about 20% off.  Bonus is that a discount is a system 
plus accessories, so you can get an iPod, cinema display, airport hub, 
etc on the cheap (maybe not "cheap" but reasonable :).  It actually 
makes adding RAM cheap enough such that you may not bother buying it 
3rd party.  You also get a bunch of developer tech support, a free 
ticket to WWDC (sans transportation), and all the ADC mailings (which 
includes a copy of whatever OS they release that year and all the 
public betas).  It's not cheap, $3500 I believe, but it pays for itself 
in discounts alone if you end up spending an average of $1750 or more 
each purchase, which isn't that hard.

If you sign up for ADC select you don't get a whole lot the first year, 
but for every year you renew you get one hardware discount.  If your 
ADC Premiere subscription is expiring you can renew as select and get 
this hardware discount.

I don't really know how the hardware purchase program works in Europe, 
but hopefully it's something like it is here.  Basically you go to a 
particular URL, click on a store which takes you to a version of 
store.apple.com with discount prices.

I think you get a similar deal if you're a student or educator (though 
I think it may be more like 15%), so maybe that would be an 
easier/cheaper route?

-bob (who has paid ADC prices for two personal machines and an iPod 
because there were left over hardware discounts from work)
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