Good online places to buy Apples?

one of my teachers is interested in purchasing an Apple. I believe that buying it online could save on sales tax.. is there any particular reseller one could reccomend? So far Portable One seems like a good choice as I had good experiences buying Fujitsu models from them.. and they happen to also sell powerbooks (but sadly no ibooks). but am looking for other alternatives

 

Apple.com
They have education discounts.

 

Apple.com

Where else?

 

Ditto on the Apple.com suggestions. They offer educational discounts which would probably offset any sales tax you would have to pay for.

I've heard good things about Portable One customer service, however, and if they will offer you an educational discount on top of waiving the sales tax, that might be an even better deal.

 

Pricegrabber and ebay have them as well.

 

PCConnection has worked well for me in the past, here's a list of retailers that sell Apple machines

http://www.notebookreview.com/price/default.asp?display=priceDetail&brandID=2&productID=11438&productFamilyID=12

plenty of places. Amazon.com sells most Apple machines and has a 30-day return full refund, and I've never had problems with them.

 

Best Buy and CDW also sell Apple notebooks online.

Although I am not sure if they charge tax...

 

If refurbished laptops are okay, try www.techrestore.com

 

Best Buy charges tax...the way it works is if the store you purchase from online operates from within your state (retail stores, warehouses, etc.) you must pay sales tax on the transaction. I don't know about CDW, it depends on if they have a warehouse or something in your state. I would buy right from Apple, as they have great educational discounts (the only way to save money on a Mac).

 

If you are based in a state that has sales tax, then I think Apple will charge it if you order from their online store. If you buy it from a third-party retailer from a non-sales-taxed state (Oregon, Montana, and others...) then they won't charge you...but technically you do have to pay sales tax. No one enforces the law, so no one pays.

I think it's just a minimal form of tax fraud.

I'd order from Amazon because they run deals sometimes that are equivalent to Apple's education discounts and I don't think they charge sales tax. Not sure though...

 

Ahhh!

Ok, here is how the sales tax comes in, it doesn't matter if the state has sales tax or not, my state wisconsin has a 5% sales tax, and when I buy online it doesn't charge me sales tax.

This is how it works, if the company actually has a store of its own that resides within the state you reside, then you have to pay sales tax, if it doesn't have a store in your state than you don't have to pay sales tax even if there is a tax in the state. Now some states tried to pass laws on taxes no matter what, but failed.

Now in Wisconsin, there is one Apple Store in the state, therefore I have to pay sales taxes, if it didnt have one here I wouldn't have too.

Why would you not use Apples own site?

If you wanna see if Apple.com will do a sales tax on your order, just check the website for local Apple Stores, if they have none in your state than you don't have to worry about sales tax.

 

You said what I meant to say but was too lazy to spell out. If you live in a state with an Apple store you will have to pay sales tax when you buy on Apple.com. If your state lacks an apple store if you live in you won't pay sales tax. I just figured that most states had apple stores (31 do) and assumed most people in this situation would have to pay sales tax.