Philippines, Importing a ThinkPad

[phrenkat]

Manila customs just released my 2373GUU and charged 12% VAT. Fair enough I suppose although I couldn't find anyone to tell me what the regulations here were beforehand. Now we know.
Incidentally, the whole operation went very smoothly from the time of the order late-Sep. to delivery via FedEx. I did ask Bill if I couldn't just fly up to Hong Kong and pick it up -- no dice. His deal with IBM apparently requires that all units ship from the U.S. As far as I can tell these high-end models aren't yet available anywhere in S.E. Asia.

Andre