Hi Carol,

Well, they can certainly tell when I'm on Amazon.com, since they will redirect me to Amazon.ca (the Canadian site). I've had similar experiences with many other retailers that have both American and Canadian websites, so at least some of them can obviously tell where I'm located!

In any case, it's a legal requirement in Canada that tax must be collected by the retailer if they want to sell here. I also believe that most European countries have similar laws. Most nations' tax departments are pretty experienced in enforcing tax regulations!!

Certainly for imported goods, it is easy to assess the tax at the port of entry, if it has not already been prepaid. So it really appears not to be any different than what is being proposed by the St. Maarten government. Most of their goods have to be imported, so it would be relatively easy to set-up a control program.