Sadly, with how things are with the courier and customs dep. here they can charge 30-40% of orignal price to receive electronic items
Fortunately, I have managed to get few python freelance gigs here and there and in a few months, I may be able to afford one.
Ouch. Hanlon’s razor aside, it’s almost as if the government is intentionally preventing the economy from modernizing.
Really sad that some bureaucrats couldn’t see the huge long term gains of a more technology-oriented economy, and instead could only focus on whatever marginal short term revenue these tariffs generated.
The government tax on electronics is not good though. I'd have to paypal them extra money to cover it, if paypal is even a thing for them.
> Automatic data processing machines and units thereof; magnetic or optical readers, machines for transcribing data on to data media in coded form and machines for processing such data, not elsewhere specified or included. -Portable automatic data processing machines, weighing not more than 10 kg, consisting of at least a central processing unit, a keyboard and a display: 8471.30.10 ---Notebook and Laptop
> Import Duty (% except otherwise specified)
> SAARC: Free
> GENERAL: Free
https://customs.gov.np/storage/files/1/Custom%20Tariff/Custo...
You're welcome.
Something I never really understood, when going to less developed countries, why are customs always trying to fleece everyone? Normalized bribes, byzantine bureaucracy, astronomical import duties on computers and essential products.
What's the goal with this? Is there some kind of long term strategy I'm not seeing? Do they not want investments or a tech sector?
The unemployment and brain drain these countries suffer sure paints a bleak picture.
I still think about them all the time, and how sad it is that people live in a society like that where blatant robbery was simply the norm. It gives me some hope though that with the proliferation of affordable mobile phones across impoverished regions, people finally have the means, however modest, to receive an education.
I think that cheap computers and internet changed the game in education. I can learn to code in python anywhere. When I was studying, PC were few and you had to be at a university to have a reasonable chance to touch one. There was practically no internet.
The individual customs official or even the department is not incentivized to look at the benefit to the entire country. On the other hand, they are directly responsible to increase their collections, based on which they get a cut.
It’s an insane thing to do since the benefits to consumers and business users of these products is many times higher than the money made by the industries producing them. To a lesser extent the same pattern emerges in dirigiste-curious economies like Canada who limit foreign entrants into markets like telecom, resulting in a general tax on the entire population who suffer expensive and inadequate data plans in order to protect local oligopolies.
That's something I never understood either. Telecom is a commodity. I also think that's what hurt Blackberry back when it was still relevant: They were developing these phones in an environment where the carrier had all powers and where data was so limited.
I remember them being incredibly skeptical at the iPhone because Apple was expecting data to become cheap and plentiful.
the money made by the industries producing them is tangible, and there are lobbies protecting it, whereas the benefits to customers are intangible.
If you think about it, it is not the insane thing, in fact, given the system, it is the sane rational thing that benefits these actors.
There are a significant amount of people who are basically milking the rest of the society with their power and doing so without any consequence. This is what entrenched corruption looks like.
There are no need to specifically break any laws that others are not breaking already, there just have to be so many that compliance is impossible and enforcement selective. When the gray area expand so significantly, you get the power broker rich as they enjoy competitive advantage.
In 2016 I tried fedex and told my friends to send old macbook. In insurance he had written the purchase price. And I had to pay all the taxes. And it was 40% tax.
Customs officers are thieves here.
And fedex did nothing. I supposed the would deliver to my home. But they made me run for 2-3 days and told me to go to customs and claim my items.
