This probably won’t be a surprise to many folks residing over the in UK, but it was noticed that Apple took down its online store over there for a few hours to raise prices to reflect an increase in the national value-added-tax (VAT) that has gone into effect, increasing the rate from 17.5% to 20%.
Thanks to the increase, the pricing for many items may look a tad strange. An entry-level MacBook Pro or iMac that previously cost GBP999 will now set you back GBP1,020, while the entry level Mac Pro was bumped from GBP1,999 to GBP2,041. Some folks were obviously hoping that Apple might absorb the tax increases by reducing the prices slightly in order to maintain the psychological price points used for many of those products, but that obviously didn’t happen.