Digital Market: US purchase only????

Hi Paul,
I have tried to buy several different Digital items from Permies.com today; starting with Ben Petersons's Wood Gasifier Builder's Bible. When I click "Purchase" a window comes up asking if I am a US Resident; When I answer "No" (I live in Canada) it says you are currently only selling digital market items in the US... this makes no sense to me, I thought the whole point of 'digital' is to be able to access a worldwide market... is this correct, or is it a glitch?? Really disappointed if I can't purchase digital products from your website, it's one of the reasons I joined.

Thanks for your time... Wendy

Wendy,

I wrote a bit more on this topic here:

https://permies.com/t/137817/VAT-digital-market

Basically, there was a wonderful service in canada that we used to use for selling all of our digital content.   And then the european VAT police showed up and it was so bad that they closed their doors.

The US does not have VAT.  And Montana (where I live) has no sales tax.  So we don't have to worry about any of that stuff.  Unless, of course, the VAT police from outside of the US shows up.  

If there was any information to suggest that Canada has documented "We will not ever do the VAT police thing for digital content in the US" then I will arrange to make changes to our software.  

And then people says "How about if you just add 25% to cover the VAT costs?" and my answer is that I would actually need to at least double the price of every item.  Because there is the 22% to 25% VAT expense, plus the expense of having all the accountants do all the math and file all the proper paperwork.   For a tiny entity like us, the paperwork would be the most brutal part of it all.

Sorry.  It's not me (us).  It's your government.