From the Raspberry Pi website:
I’d like to draw attention to one cost in particular that really created problems for us in Britain. Simply put, if we build the Raspberry Pi in Britain, we have to pay a lot more tax. If a British company imports components, it has to pay tax on those (and most components are not made in the UK). If, however, a completed device is made abroad and imported into the UK – with all of those components soldered onto it – it does not attract any import duty at all. This means that it’s really, really tax inefficient for an electronics company to do its manufacturing in Britain, and it’s one of the reasons that so much of our manufacturing goes overseas. Right now, the way things stand means that a company doing its manufacturing abroad, depriving the UK economy, gets a tax break. It’s an absolutely mad way for the Inland Revenue to be running things, and it’s an issue we’ve taken up with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Related articles
- We’ve started manufacture! (raspberrypi.org)
- The Raspberry Pi is being manufactured (geek.com)
- US$25 Raspberry Pi personal computer nears launch date (gizmag.com)
- Having your Pi and eating it (measuresconsulting.wordpress.com)
- Ask Director Eben Upton About the Raspberry Pi Foundation (hardware.slashdot.org)
- Anonymous Bidder Pays £989 For Raspberry Pi Board, Donates To Museum (cosmicbackdrop.wordpress.com)
- Teaching technology in the future – Raspberry Pi (andypiper.co.uk)
- Another Dopalicious Pi (arithmachic.wordpress.com)
- Slice of Raspberry Pi (lvccldtac.wordpress.com)
- Imported wine, Scotch, cars set to cost less – The Economic Times (indialphaconsultancy.wordpress.com)
- Update | China says to hit U.S. auto imports with duties | Reuters (skillsinfo.wordpress.com)
cartesian product ... stuff about computing mostly 