Quote:
Originally Posted by Yapyap
There's one big reason why I don't like pretending I'm somewhere else (although I do it when it's easy enough for me to manage and as long as Amazon turns a blind eye to it) - I feel somewhat guilty over my government not getting the VAT.
This is less of a moral problem with georestricted books I can't get otherwise (because if I'm not allowed to buy it, my government won't get the VAT anyway), but... Well.
Thing is, once you've learned to bypass georestrictions, it becomes rather tempting to do it also for books that are discounted/on sale for $1.99/free for Americans and $14 for the rest of us, doesn't it? I resisted doing that for a year, but with the amount of books I buy... It's not even the middle of February yet and I've already bought books for ~$200 this year (lest anyone think that I do nothing but steal all the time), including a number of preorders not available yet. Had I always been honest in my country settings, this would be at least $50 more.
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To which I say who cares? I know Australians who buy all their paper books through the US because the price is a great deal less expensive then the prices in Australia even with shipping. If the government is going to charge so much in tax that it gives you an incentive to shop elsewhere, then the government should change the tax code so that you have an incentive to shop at home.