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At 11:48 AM 6/28/95 EST, you wrote: >** Reply to note from dewar@GNAT.CS.NYU.EDU 06/27/95 11:26pm -0400 > >> "IBM should take things like this [sales tax] into account" >> >> more incomprensible IBM bashing, what the heck does it mean to take the >> sales takx into account, it is nothing to do with IBM what states decide >> to tack on to sales .... > >All I said was that because buying with an educational discount from >IBM means paying sales tax, the difference in educational price and >out-of-state mail-order retail price is only 2%-4%. Most mail order >places discount more than that so for the most part there is no such >thing as an educational "discount." IBM should take things like this >into account when setting their prices. > Buying by mail order does not absolve the buyer from his obligation to pay state and local sales tax on any such goods purchased. A few years ago an attempt was made to require mail-order vendors to charge the appropriate state and local taxes and remit to the states. The compromise that was finally passed required any vendor with some kind of business presence in a state to collect and remit state and local sales tax. Vendors without such a presence are not required to collect sales tax, although the buyer is still required to pay it. Since IBM has a business presence in probably every state, any purchase from IBM will have state and local sales tax added to ithe price. IBM has no control over this requirement. If they tried to charge less for products they market directly, their resellers would quit carrying and selling IBM's products. About the only difference in the different channels are availability of product; one channel may have what you want in stock, another might not. The educational channel would seem to be the stepchild here. In general, IBM gives the same wholesale price to both their authorized dealers and their educational resellers. The dealers may sometimes get units cheaper through special deals on discontinued or imminently discontinued products (or maybe through some gray-market purchases), and many school distributors add on what they consider their overhead for providing the service. Also most schools are exempt from sales tax on their own purchases. It's only on purchases by private individuals that require them to charge sales tax. >The "educational discount" is supposed to give folks in academia a >financial break. The reality is that it doesn't. Either fix it so >it does (sales tax and all), or get rid of it and refer people to >good mail-order resellers. > A few years ago responsible mail-order vendors were not as prevalent, competition was not as stiff, and educational discounts were one of the best deals going. Now almost all the manufacturers and vendors are on razor thin margins; competition is intense, and computers have become a commodity market. Educational discounts are no longer the great deal they once were, but they may still be the best deal for many first-time buyers and people without the experience and knowledge to be able to compare the products in mail-order advertisements. >____________________________________________________________________________ > >John H. Kim "A common mistake that people make when trying to design >jokim@mit.edu something completely foolproof is to underestimate the >jokim@uni.uiuc.edu ingenuity of complete fools." -- Douglas Adams > Brooks McNeely