Australians will no longer be able to order from Amazon’s American site (opens in new tab)

This may become? Hasn't it always been like this for most commercial companies and sites?

"Video not available in your country". "Google Nexus is not available for your country, check back soon". google.com -> google.ro (or whatever).

I guess most Americans haven't noticed it because they haven't needed stuff from abroad...

What part of companies complying with local tax law saddens you?

If Amazon, or anyone else for that matter, wants access to the Australian market then they need to abide by the tax regulations as dictated by Australia. If it's the tax itself that considered off putting, that's up to Australians to decide (i.e. local protectionism / profit capture v.s. lower prices and higher global imports).

Well, if you look, for example computers parts in Germany with geizhals.de, seems like the shops' majority will deliver products only inland. I've read something about complications with different VAT rates between European countries, IIRC if they differ, the seller must apply the customer's rate, and this can create a debt or a credit and so on...

Didn't noticed the same thing with shops in UK or France tho.

Edit: grammar

It saddens you that all retailers selling to customers in the same place have the same tax collection rules applied to them?

It does not level the playing field. A foreign company cannot reclaim GST on input cost. A 10% levy will kill the profit margin of the magority of businesses and make it impossible to compete in Australia. You are probably best creating an Aus subsidiary but then you open yourself up to accusations of transfer pricing. In addition it’s likely other countries will do something similar in retaliation and this will hurt Aus exporters. There is a reason why this wasn’t done earlier and it’s because it’s really stupid. Only big businesses can sufficiently amortize compliance cost and hire enough lawyers and accountants to transfer price away the profits to some tax haven. Small businesses will get hosed.

Not so much "new" but "now enforced to all the things"

Already happened with Valve. Buying from the store has 10% in the price, but not all prices changed.

Why not collect the tax rather than banning Australians?

(1964)

How dare Australia make Jeff Bezos follow the law and stop Amazon from undercutting local competition!

I got a first generation ROG Swift 1440p 144hz G-Sync monitor about 4 years ago. It had been constantly sold out in the US from every retailer. So I found one on UK Amazon. Sure, it took a little longer to get here, but I think it got here in 3-4 vs 1-2. Since it came with the British power plug, I had to get a different cable, but other than that, it was fine.

I don't understand the issue as long as you're paying for the shipping.

How do they know they can trust you?

Our postal service offers it. I’m not joking either!