It just sucks that the dollar is so low! Thanks to our administration. It's so freaking expensive to buy c*** from Europe now and... UK! Forget it. It's almost double! That really sucks to me.

It costs significantly more to do business in the EU. The cost of employees is much higher, insurance, tax, etc. If Apple were just shipping the products over there and dumping them then these morons would have a point, but they aren't. Apple have corporate offices full of people to support the reseller network. The resellers need to make a profit from selling and supporting the mini as well. Their rent is higher on average than a similar location in a US city.

Europeans should be applauding Apple for keeping the price difference so low considering the tremendous disincentive EU policies have on doing business there. And I haven't even mentioned the extraordinary amount of red tape at every turn.

Actually, we pay much less tax overall in terms of what most Europeans pay in sales (VAT) and income tax. On average, about 45% of every dollar we make and spend in the US is for taxes (includes sales, utilities, state, income). In Europe, its closer to 55%. But, I do agree that EU citizens can't hold Apple responsible for the fact that VAT is already included in the price in their country, while it isn't in the US. In fact the prices are very similar if you add our tax (usually around 10%) to the final price.

I'll just plan a nice weekend in NY and buy the Mini in the big apple. Aftyer all, at the airport they will only check me for bombs, not mini's.....

Are you nuts!?! You don't buy in the big apple! They've got the most outrageous sales taxes around. Take a road trip to Delaware or New Hampshire. There's no sales taxes at all. Of course, what you save in taxes you'll pay for in fuel costs, so maybe there's not much savings...

...European shoppers, who are petitioning Apple to rethink its EU pricing

I think they're barking up the wrong tree, its the oppressive governments with heavy-handed tax policies which hurt the consumers, not Apple. I mean, don't they understand that Apple desperately wants their business, but can't go about losing money to gain customers.

And being the ignorant savages that these "enlightened" consumers are, I'm willing to bet that had Apple done exactly as they wished, they would be bringing anti-trust lawsuits against Apple; which kind of brings me to the point of why I think anti-trust regulation is a bad joke, and a very harmful one at that.

Actually, I was estimating that my US total tax was around 50% including both income taxes (federal, state, FICA, and Medicare) and sales taxes (10% here in Chicago) but not including property, fuel, and utility taxes. But yes, the point is that Apple can't control the taxing authorities. To be fair, you have to compare pre-tax Apples to pre-tax Apples!

And if you still think it's that unfair, I'm heading to London in a couple of weeks. Send me your orders and I'll bring them over with me. But it's not my fault if your customs officials add an import tax to your bill! :)

Online petition? Well then, problem solved.

Prices (pre tax) are only 5-10 percent higher in Europe for Apple products than in the US. The costs of doing business, as has already been noted, is higher in Europe (I lived and worked in Germany for a while and have seen it first hand). That translates to higher prices. And also relative market size (for each European country) is probably smaller, so that affects pricing to a limited extent as well.

It just shows you that the European governments have succeeded as well. That the VAT, being built into the price of everything, has been so accepted that the people there don't even question it. The US does not have a VAT. VATs are added into the price since the "value added" to each product happens at each stage in its production and distribution, and hence the small amounts that make up the final VAT added at each level, so that the final price already has the VAT in it and people don't get the shock of their life when 20% or so is added to their bill at the register. The US and Japan (and maybe some other countries) have a sales tax on the other hand. A sales tax is a tax on the final sale and hence added in at the register. Hence the big shock of the extra amount -- which keeps political pressure up to keep taxes down.

EU regulations require a 2 year warranty, the U.S. version has only a one year warranty.

Apple charges $150 to go to a 3 year warranty, or $75 per year of warranty.

Add that into the price, and its clear, the EU Mini Mac, before VAT, is actualling being sold at a discount, not a premium to the U.S. price

This is not true. The Mac mini has a 1 year warranty in Germany. You can go to the www.apple.com/de/ and look up Mac mini where it says

"Ihr Mac mini wird mit 90-tägigem, kostenlosem Telefon-Support und einer einjährigen Herstellergarantie geliefert."

That says in English, "Your Mac mini is delivered with a 90 day free Telephone support and a one year manufacturers warranty."

What I said is true...it is the Apple website that is wrong.

EU law states that consumer products will have a two year warranty, and so you do have a 2 year warranty in Germany.

Nevermind the host of other laws that influence price.

(by the way, I'm not a lawyer, but this has been the theme on other websites, and I'm simply repeating it)

I will say this...I have, since hearing about this, looked up a lot of warranties, and sure enough, lots of them say 1 year for the U.S., 2 years in the EU.

So, there is some reasoning behind this...however, again, I'm not a lawyer expert in German law, so see your lawyer (and not apple's hastily translated, still written partially in english website)

ok, went suring around the internet...man was this one hard to track down, but found on 3 different places:

http://www.warrantyweek.com/archive/ww20040629.html

as one example...also look up posts on usenet ...

the warranty in Germany is 2 YEARS, per Federal Law.

In the United States it is one year...this more than explains the price difference.

Ok let's take a quick lesson here:

In the U.S. a Mac mini costs $499 before any kind of tax.
Ref: http://store.apple.com/

In France, a Mac mini costs €417 before any tax (€499 with the French VAT Tax added on)
Ref: http://www.apple.com/francestore/

So $499 is equal to €382 at this time.
Ref: http://www.xe.com/

€412 - €382 = €35. So Apple charges €35 more for the Mac mini in France.

This information is correct as of 20:00 GMT on 18/01/2005.

Bear in mind two other factors:
- Apple has to pay tax to the European Union/EU Country for importing the Mac mini into said country, on top of charging you VAT.
- Apple has to pay for seperate patents for the EU, register trademarks, and also cover the Apple Care service for the EU.
- There are many other administrative costs associated with reselling the and shipping the Mac mini to the EU (EU customs duties).
- The €35 difference actually can be considered within the margin of error with the $ to € price fluctuations.

As someone who lives in the UK, I really don't think Apple charge that much more. And frankly, if I imported a Mac mini from the U.S.A to here in the UK, I would still have to pay 17.5% VAT tax to the UK Government. I know a lot of people avoid doing it - but none the less IT IS BREAKING THE LAW AND JUST AS BAD AS THEY GUY WHO SEEDED TIGER ON FILESHARING NETWORKS AND WAS SUED FOR IT.

Let me repeat myself, there is no cos benefit of importing a Mac mini into the UK unless you plan on BREAKING THE LAW.

Until you can find something that says Apple has to offer a warranty of 2 years on an iMac or Mac mini, I would believe the Apple website. I have found "consumer goods" but no definition of what that means. The iMac website for Germany Apple also lists 1 year, not 2 years, and the iMac has been around for a while so it is not a hastily translated website.

I checked the Apple website for the UK, Sweden, and France, in addition to Germany. All are EU states. All list 1 (ONE) year for the iMac, which is NOT a new product, so no claims of hastily translated websites apply. I also checked the warranty card that came with the apple airport express. It lists worldwide warranty info and is not limited to the US. It shows one year.

Apple is not a dumb company that would list 1 year warranty in the EU if it was required to give two. That would open them up to hige EU fines and probably huge liability.

Someone posted a link to a website called warrantyweek.com . The article was interesting but useless as it did not define things that are important.

The price difference from the EU to the US would probably be LARGER if it were paying for a 2 year warranty versus a one year. That explanation does not hold much water.

I find it interesting that Dell in Germany lists 1 year on its websites for many of its products. Dell is not a dumb company.

HP, in it German online website, lists 1 year for many (most) of its products. HP is not a dumb company.

The internet lawyers here in the list are obviously missing something.