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Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
Except it isn't a tax issue--it's who gets the money for the book on the publisher's part. The UK publisher wants to sell from its location to whatever location rights it bought. The American publisher of the same book doesn't want you to buy it from the UK if you live in the US because THEY have the right to sell it to you. The author is compensated either way, but the publisher is not--often a publisher on the US will sell rights to a completely different company elsewhere--thus if that company doesn't get the sale, they paid for rights they are unable to benefit from.
Then there are snits all over the place.
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When Amazon sells me a pbook, it looks at the states where Amazon has a physical presence, and either charges tax or not, depending on whether I'm in one of those states.
No reason ebooks shouldn't work the same way--allowing the *seller's* location (however that's decided), not the buyer's, to be considered the place of sale. Unless there's a ban on bringing that book across those country lines--like, a physical copy would be impounded at customs--there's no reason to restrict the sale across country lines, any more than they'd forbid a UK resident from walking into a US store and buying a book.
And it's often not the publishers selling these ebooks--it's resellers. Stores. No reason they shouldn't be able to sell to anyone who visits their online location.