24-70L-II Purchase in 2012

I will be buying a 24-70L-II in 2012 for business and tax purposes. (I need the write-off in 2012 and I need this to complement my 16-24L and 24-105L) And no, I'm not interested in a MkI at a much lower price.

It is currently listed at the retail of US$2299 on back-order rumored to be July 2012 availability in the US. I'm OK with paying retail if that's the best I can do. I'm not in a hurry so I have the rest of 2012 to develop a purchase strategy. I prefer Amazon since I consolidate as many of my deductible purchases as possible there because it's easy to retrieve receipts all from one place rather than scattered among various places.

When does Canon do their US rebate campaigns and what's the chances that it would have a rebate?

The last rebate ended March 31. Based on prior rebates, I would expect the next one to start at begining of May, which will not help you. There will also likely be on in the fall and another in the winter.

Its up to canon to decide if and when the mkII will go on rebate. If you want to use the 70-200 f/2.8 mk II as an example. It was released in April 2010. In May, the Mk I went on rebate. In August it was rebate with a camera purchase. After that Oct 2010, Feb 2011, Nov 2011, and Feb 2012 all had it on rebate, the only exception were May and Aug 2011, which were the two after the earthquake.

I think it is reasonable that it will be on rebate this year, especially if the Tamron 24-70 VC turns out not to be a dud. Canon may even go out of the way and put it on "rebate" as soon as it is officially released, as an "apology" for the delay, but again I am guessing they will do so if they see the Tamron as a real threat.

Would Canon ever rebate a brand-new lens at it's release? That almost seems like it would admit failure or mis-pricing.

If nothing else, buy it around Christmas. There are usually pretty good deals then. That is when I got my 5DII and that was the lowest price it's ever been.

Hope against hope, I can hope the pricing scares people off (fat chance, probably since pros are not so price sensitive) and demand is tame. We'll have to see how that plays out. Thanks for the responses.