A friend forwarded me some links about how the EU’s moronic regulators think that they can somehow force non-EU businesses to collect EU VAT taxes on online sales.
This is moronic arrogance of the worst sort.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight.
Let’s say I, a United States citizen, physically located in the United States, set up a web server located in a data center in the United States, and I set up a site on that server, in US English, to sell various electronic downloads to customers who visit my site, and I set my prices in United States dollars.
What grounds does the EU think that they have to regulate any portion of this transaction whatsoever?
Suppose instead of a web site selling downloads, I open up a bodega in New York City, and I sell fruits and vegetables and lottery tickets to people who come in off the street. Does the EU somehow think that I should be checking passports of my customers to determine which of them I should charge VAT tax to?
In my not-so-humble opinion: the EU can pound sand. (And the horse they rode in on, and their little dog, too.)
I do not believe that these regulations will hold up to legal scrutiny. (I am not an attorney.)