Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Which has nothing to do with the tax. Not sure why it’s considered a criminal matter in Japan - if they paid the applicable tax, which the article doesn’t mention they did not, then the issue of using the discount and reselling is a violation of Apple policy and a civil matter not a criminal one.
The tax amount leaves no realistic margin to resell these products. Anyone who thinks they can run a hardgoods resale business on 10% margins is in for an unhappy surprise unless they are reselling very expensive goods. If a new phone is JPY250,000 and their margin is JPY25000, they need to sell almost as many phones as that Apple Store in order to make it worthwhile.
Good point, but I suspect it's a combination of things: Arbitrage with export to other countries for resale, and while they're at it, they might as well save on the tax as well. Although in this situation, if they are actually exported in new condition, then it's not really tax fraud, is it, as long as the resale took place after export?