dan

They also set up a system so that non-EU retail sellers can collect VAT directly on payment

That's what Australia does too. Since the sellers already had their systems set up to handle it for Australia, it was probably easy for them to extend it to be used for the EU too.

I agree, and don't think there should be any tariffs.

Having said that, a US store that has to pay sales tax is never going to win over a foreign store that doesn't have to pay sales tax. Even after shipping, the exact same product will likely be cheaper to buy from the European store.

If you buy something from Europe under the de minimis exception, there's no tax applied at all. European countries/companies usually don't tax buyers from outside the EU, and the US doesn't tax it either.

Applying the same tax for both US and international purchases makes sense IMO. This is what Australia does: The sales tax rate is 10% across the whole country, and foreign stores that sell to Australians have to collect 10% tax and send it to the Australian government. Collecting taxes at the point of payment, even for foreign stores, avoids customers having to pay taxes separately when the package arrives in the country.

But🍑

Maybe that's to make it seem more "real"? I'm not sure.

Why does this article describe it as a "loophole"? It's not a loophole; it was intentionally written into law.

enormous shipping times

This definitely improved over time. I don't order much from Aliexpress, but the last two items I ordered arrived in just over a week - a similar time frame as ordering from a US store that doesn't do fast shipping. A few days in China, then on a plane, then a few days in the USA.

You never had to pay it because there was a longstanding rule called "De Minimis" which exempted all items under $800 from import taxes.

I can understand why they'd want to get rid of this... It was very generous and often meant that buying goods from an overseas supplier was cheaper than buying the exact same items from a US-based supplier. For example, I've bought MikroTik hardware from a Latvian supplier (Getic) because it ended up noticeably cheaper than buying from a US store, even after shipping.

Most countries have duty-free thresholds that are much lower, around the equivalent of $50-100 before taxes and duties are applied. The US limit used to be $200 until 2016.

Kagi have their own index too.

Can you please link to the paid Google API you're talking about? I wasn't aware they had an API for web search.

Maybe that's why they cache results for 30 days?

Why do that when you could just connect it to the LAN and put it on a separate VLAN?