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iPad UK Pricing Confirmed; Apple UK Tax Applied

Posted by kdawson on from the dig-deep dept.

The iPad will be available in the UK and eight other countries from 28 May 2010; both models will be available for pre-order on 10 May. Reader marcopolo007uk adds a note from iPad-Review.co.uk with pricing: "WiFi Models: 16GB / 32GB / 64GB — £429 / £499 / £599. 3G versions: 16GB / 32GB / 64GB — £529 / £599 / £699. These are a little higher than some had guessed... The Apple Tax stings the UK consumer again." At the current exchange rate, these prices are right around 150% of those offered in the US.

39 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. The OP forgot VAT. by Dzimas · · Score: 5, Informative

    Someone can't do math. The numbers are actually really close. Let's look at the base 16GB model. It's £429 in the UK, which equals about $630 according to xe.com. Take off the 17.5% VAT, and we get £353.93. That equals $520 US. What's the problem again???

    1. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by tk77 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What's the problem again?

      VAT

      And how is this Apple's problem?

    2. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How is a difference of £75 ($110) "really close"?

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    3. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by fredrik70 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      and so they should! We like our public servies

      --
      if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
    4. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by dougmwne · · Score: 3, Insightful

      At least in the UK you're getting a better return for your tax pounds. You spend a smaller percentage of your GDP on military and you get nationalized healthcare.

    5. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Informative

      By replying to your post with a technical correction, I don't doubt that I'm setting myself up to make some obvious mistake, but anyway: the UK prices already include VAT, so by simply subtracting 17.5% of that total you're over counting the tax (as it's 17.5% of the base, untaxed price).

      £429/1.175=£365.11, which is approximately $537.80. The mark up from the US prices seems to be around 8%. It's not terrible, I guess, and it's certainly not as bad as it used to be, but 8% on an already expensive product is still a reasonable chunk of change.

    6. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by evilbessie · · Score: 2, Informative

      You might want to do your maths again, as to remove vat you need to multipy by 40/47, which is £365.11, or $537.84 (using 1.4731 as the exchange rate, just retrieved from the beeb).

    7. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Also, since the summary presents the UK price as a percentage of the US one, here are the actual figures:

      Wifi
      16GB 32GB 64GB
      108% 104% 107%

      3G
      16GB 32GB 64GB
      105% 103% 106%

    8. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by Neoprofin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And free houses for all the Chavs. I'll take my nano-tech, space laser, military-industrial complex.

    9. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I disagree with you. This is a quote from a post I made late last year:

      I've recently had very bad news in my family - in the space of two weeks, my uncle has been told he needs heart surgery, and my mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. My uncle has been scheduled for surgery on 15th of this month, and my mother has put off her appointment (originally on the 11th) because I'm getting married on the 12th. She'll be going under the knife on 19th instead. My uncle will be missing the wedding, but we're going to stream it live so he can watch it in the UK, even if it is at midnight over there :)

      I thank my lucky stars we're from the UK, because there's just no way our family could afford their treatment over here in the USA - my uncle's heart surgery would cost circa $175,000, my mother's cancer treatment and subsequent costs could come to circa $100,000. We've never had money - I was the first kid in our family to go to college for example, and I had to pay my way through that. We've always scraped-by and made-do, mother and father working, grandmother looking after the kids etc. Over here, I'm lucky in that I have an excellent medical insurance plan from my company, but my fiancee didn't have medical insurance until we met. She used to try not to visit a doctor, to self-medicate via a drugstore if something was wrong. I was horrified that someone would even consider that. Seriously and truthfully - I was aghast that a visit to the doctors wasn't just "what you'd do if you're not feeling well". It's just a no-brainer from my (and anyone from the UK, I suspect) perspective.

      For her part, my mother gets personal visits in her home from the MacMillan nurse (cancer specialist nurses, there to answer any questions, give advice, as well as do the nursing stuff), and she has one of the best surgical teams in the country ready to operate when she gets back to the UK. All of this is standard-stuff, she pays her dues (in her taxes / national insurance contributions), and she has the peace-of-mind that comes from knowing she has access to excellent health-care whenever she wants it, without being suddenly landed with huge bills, and without any worry of 'recission' by a financially-orientated insurance company.

      There's a lot I like (even prefer) about the USA, but the healthcare system is (from an outsiders perspective) a badge of shame. Everyone gets sick eventually, and everyone dies eventually. Any civilised country ought to recognise and cope with that such that people don't fall through the cracks. The NHS in the UK isn't perfect - you'll frequently hear Brits complaining about it - but it's head, shoulders, and torso above the system over here. I still pay my 'national insurance' in the UK, even though I live in the US - the cost is minimal (about £15/month), and I don't mind helping fund something today that I (or, say, a member of my family) might make use of tomorrow. To me, it's beyond belief that people in the USA fight *against* a similar system, but hey, each to their own. I don't get to vote over here so it's not as though I can do anything about it...

      Bottom line: In the UK, health follows an almost burger-king like mantra - "you need it? You got it!" whereas in the USA, you're trusting your health and possibly your life to the same sort of company that screws you over if someone hits your car - an insurance company that has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. After the last few weeks, I'm pretty darn certain which of the two models I prefer.

      From our perspective, the good news is that my mother pulled through, both her and my uncle are on medicines for the rest of her life (free, of course) and my mother has just finished the chemotherapy, so she's feeling a little fragile atm, but she made it; anything else is irrelevant.

      Simon.

      --
      Physicists get Hadrons!
    10. Re:The OP forgot VAT. by shilly · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1) There's plenty of people who would struggle to get $5k together
      2) He also paid insurance premiums, and the premiums may go up and the exclusions may become more significant because of his history now
      3) In the UK, he'd have paid £0 at point of need, not $2.5k or 5k
      4) How do you know for sure that Duke provides better treatment? What do you mean: better outcomes? better experience? safer? all three? Where's the evidence for your assertion?

  2. £429? ... Ouch by Manip · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just to put the cheapest one into context:
      * iPod Touch - £189
      * Dell Laptop (Outlet) - £300
      * Acer / Dell Laptops (Retail) - £400-450
      * ePC "Netbook" - £200
      * Dell "Netbook" - £139
      * Sony "Netbook" - £399

    So you could get two iPod Touches, or a Dell Laptop AND Dell Netbook, Sony Netbook, or two ePC Netbooks for this money?

    1. Re:£429? ... Ouch by Flipao · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes but this is an unbelievable, magical, amazing, revolutionary, gorgeous device. Surely that's gotta be worth something.

    2. Re:£429? ... Ouch by dintech · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Steve Jobs is writing a new story. "The Emperors New Computing Device"

  3. Value add by dougmwne · · Score: 2

    Why the flamebait? What they are calling the "apple tax" is really the value add tax, which must be built into the price of all products sold. Why should products be priced identically across all countries anyway? Shouldn't companies maximize their profits by pricing their wares competitively with the local market?

  4. EU/UK vs. American Pricing by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Let me guess - in Europe, you'd pay exactly those prices listed? No sales tax added on?

    So you'd pay £429 / £499 / £599 / £529 / £599 / £699 for an iPad and not a penny more in sales/VAT?

    That's one thing we have in North America - the prices listed ($499/$599/$699/$629/$729/$829) are sans sales tax. So add anywhere from 0% (a few states), to 5-10% to the actual price that Americans pay. Or in Canada, anywhere from 5-15% in sales taxes.

    In the UK, the prices tend to be all inclusive - you pay what you see, so all the hidden consumption taxes get built in. VAT of nearly 20%, plus other import taxes and duties and the like. I'm guessing the price gap is a lot smaller than you think.

    It's just that governments have used built-in taxes to hide how much taxes are really on products. Happens on this side of the pond with stuff like gas when you actually break down the price.

    For example, the 16GB WiFi iPad - £429 is around $630 US. $500 US for the same iPad, plus taxes will probably mean one pays $530-$550 in the US. If we assume the total tax load is (VAT+importation taxes plus duties) 20% for the UK, that $500 iPad becomes $600 instantly.

    1. Re:EU/UK vs. American Pricing by Tim+C · · Score: 3, Informative

      Let me guess - in Europe, you'd pay exactly those prices listed? No sales tax added on?

      I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but here in the UK you are correct - we pay the list price. Sometimes the price is listed as "ex VAT", so you have to factor in an extra 17.5% on top, but that's almost exclusively done by merchants that are targeting business customers. (And generally the price inclusive of VAT is listed alongside anyway)

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
    2. Re:EU/UK vs. American Pricing by Alnitak73 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sometimes the price is listed as "ex VAT", so you have to factor in an extra 17.5% on top, but that's almost exclusively done by merchants that are targeting business customers.

      Prices advertised to consumers must in UK law be the VAT inclusive price. The "ex VAT" price may also be shown, but the total price has to be the headline price.

  5. Re:Maybe if you were a little more efficient by evilbessie · · Score: 5, Funny

    At least we didn't change ours because the person who wrote the dictionary didn't like the spellings.

  6. I'm quite sure by spleen_blender · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple is glad to see such free advertising! This is consumerism crap, not slashdot-worthy "stuff that matters" content...

  7. They're expensive here too. by mosb1000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the US an iPad is more than twice as expensive as a netbook. Netbooks start at $230, but the iPad Starts at $500.

    My brother has an iPad, and it is nothing like a netbook, so I don't know why people compare them. Right now the iPad is in a class of it's own. Don't point me to some slate computer with a desktop OS. The iPad is built from the ground up to be what it is. That's true of no other tablet computing product on the market today.

    1. Re:They're expensive here too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The iPad is built from the ground up to be what it is.

      Yeah! Cummon guys, listen to him! I don't know of any other tablet on the market that was created by making a phone bigger and taking away the phone call capability!

    2. Re:They're expensive here too. by aztracker1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's a Giant iPod Touch... it's got the iPod Touch guts, bolted into a big screen.. no ground up here... no ground breaking OS enhancements... I'm not saying it's overpriced, but it was emphatically built to be a large iPod Touch.

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
  8. But your U.S. prices do not include tax by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Informative

    £429/1.175=£365.11, which is approximately $537.80. The mark up from the US prices seems to be around 8%.

    Unless you factor in that you have to pay sales tax in most places in the U.S - which coincidentally for my area is 8%, so basically the exact same price in the end.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:But your U.S. prices do not include tax by godawful · · Score: 4, Informative

      Quite right, my 16GB non 3g after taxes was $550 here in California.

      --
      Live EVERY week... Like it's Shark Week
    2. Re:But your U.S. prices do not include tax by MoonBuggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wait, no, I retract my previous reply to you! It's not a fair point!

      I got myself a little confused, but you're comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended!).

      My initial comparison was untaxed price to untaxed price, and the mark up is between 3% and 8% there. You're then talking about adding US sales tax and comparing that taxed price to the untaxed UK price.

    3. Re:But your U.S. prices do not include tax by SSpade · · Score: 2, Informative

      I always consider sales tax in the US to be a bit of a non-issue on things like this, since (unless I'm mistaken) avoiding it is pretty trivial, by ordering online from a distributor in another state.

      You're not mistaken that avoiding it is pretty trivial, but it's also probably tax fraud.

      Most states require you to pay a "use tax" at the same rate as your state sales tax on anything you order from out of state and don't pay sales tax on. As with any other tax fraud you're fine until you get audited.

    4. Re:But your U.S. prices do not include tax by gyrogeerloose · · Score: 3, Informative

      You're not mistaken that avoiding it is pretty trivial, but it's also probably tax fraud.

      That's yet to be determined. The states say it is, the vendors say it's not; right now, the vendors are winning but you can expect to see it in the courts eventually. I think that Amazon.com and the State of California are going to go at it before long.

      --
      This ain't rocket surgery.
    5. Re:But your U.S. prices do not include tax by Relayman · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yes, you have to pay sales/use tax. Check your state income tax return. You're likely required to pay sales/use tax on anything you bought online that you didn't pay tax on at the time of purchase. If you're going to cheat on your taxes, at least be aware that that's what you're doing...

      --
      If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
    6. Re:But your U.S. prices do not include tax by dangitman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I always consider sales tax in the US to be a bit of a non-issue on things like this, since (unless I'm mistaken) avoiding it is pretty trivial, by ordering online from a distributor in another state.

      Which is why pricing in the US is such an insidious trap. Displaying shelf prices as tax-free amounts to deception. And the whole "easy to avoid by buying out-of-state" is almost criminally inefficient. It encourages waste by having items shipped across the country for no good reason, resulting in more pollution.

      It would be nice to see some tax reform, but I doubt that will ever happen, as people would rather exploit the loopholes than have an honest system that might cost a few bucks more (but also save a few bucks elsewhere).

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
  9. Re:Pleased I didn't wait by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Informative

    why dont you run AndroidX86 on it?

    http://www.android-x86.org/

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  10. Re:Yay! by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the exchange rate is 1 USD to 1.5 GBP

    £429 = ~$630 USD.

    --
    Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
  11. Can I mod an article down as "flamebait"? by gnasher719 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's not 150%, it's 126%. And the UK price includes 17.5% VAT which Apple would have to send straight to Gordon Brown's tax collectors if he hadn't just been thrown out (I think he is refusing to leave, but thank heavens he will), whereas the US price doesn't include US sales tax.

  12. Simple math is obviously beyond you... by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    UK VAT (the equivalent of sales tax in the USA) is 17.5%

    Removing the tax so we can compare fairly: £429 / 1.175 => £365.11

    Converting pounds to dollars: £429 = $539.94 (currency rate is 1 GBP = 1.47884 USD)

    So, the difference (before taking into account the import duties of ~10%) is $539.94 - $499.99 or ~$40.

    Subtracting $53 (estimated) of import duty means Apple is charging less than they do in the USA.

    Simon.

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  13. Re:Worst iPad better than "best" netbook by Petron · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Worse storage, Worse flexibility, Worse software selection, Worse productivity, there isn't anything on the ipad you can't do on a netbook, but there are a lot of things you can do on a netbook that you can't do on an ipad. The ipad isn't a tablet. Tablets have been out for years. Tablets are computers with a touch interface, mostly without keyboards. The ipad is a presentation device. It isn't made for computing. Writing a paper on an ipad would just be painful. It's made to view web pages, watch a movie, listen to music, or play some light-weight games/apps. It's not a good design for a creative platform.

    --
    if (it != oneThing) it = another;
  14. Re:Yay! by beelsebob · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The 1.175 is the VAT, at 17.5%... Really, epic fail at reading comprehension.

    $499 * 1.175 / (1.468$/£) = £399.27

  15. Re:So what makes up 50% extra or more, then? by gnasher719 · · Score: 2, Informative

    No, this is still not 150%, but it's more than three times the £20 that you said it was. Unless there is some other "sales tax" in the UK other than VAT, in which case you can call me an uninformed American and move on. :-)

    Not uninformed, but non-thinking.

    In the USA, the quoted price (the price you see in an advert or in a shop) is exclusive of sales tax / use tax. The US customer doesn't actually pay $499 for an iPad, they pay $499 plus whatever the sales tax is, say 8% = $39.92. The merchant receives $499 + $39.92 and sends $39.92 straight off to the tax office.

    In the UK, the quote price (the price you see in an advert or in a shop) is inclusive of 17.5% VAT (value added tax). The UK customer hands over exactly the £429 on the sticker, not a penny more, and doesn't ow anybody any money afterwards. The merchant receives £429. £429 equals 117.5%, so the merchant pays 17.5% = £63.89 to the tax office and keeps 100% = £365.11.

    The difference in tax rates has nothing to do with Apple, so if we are talking about Apple's price strategy and not about living costs, we have to leave the tax out. So what we have to compare is the $499 exclusive tax in the US and the £365.11 exclusive tax in the UK. And that is with the current exchange rate about $40 difference. Your number makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

  16. Re:Yay! by Yakasha · · Score: 2, Funny

    Mod -1: Not Hating Apple iPad Enough

  17. Re:Prove it by DangerFace · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From the wiki on life expectancy:

    Average lifespan at birth in the UK: 79.4 years

    Average lifespan at birth in the US: 78.2 years

    So, minor win for the UK's far inferior system there. Now, from the wiki on infant mortality rates:

    Infant deaths per 1000 live births / under 5's deaths per 1000 live births in the UK: 4.8 / 6.0

    Infant deaths per 1000 live births / under 5's deaths per 1000 live births in the US: 6.3 / 7.8

    Another one called for the Kingdom, there. Again, not a huge difference, but pretty significant if you're a parent of 1.8 out of 1000 children. So, the question seems to boil down to a choice between expensive good care or cheap effective care.

    --
    Be smart, help people!