I’ve forgotten the details, but I recall a history lesson that before the revolutionary war it was really hard for the colonists to publish books. So once the war was over there was protectionist legislation to make British-published books heavily taxed. The result, if I recall correctly, was a pactice of major publishers simultaneously publishing in both countries to avoid all such taxes.
Do the taxes exist? Or am I mistaken about that even.
Are they aimed at the British publishers only?
Are/were they considered being dropped by pro-free traders?
I do not know the history of the issue, but I can add some data for you.
I have ordered books many times from Amazon UK which were delivered to my US address and have not had to pay any special taxes. By “special”, I mean taxes aimed at international trade. You do still have to pay the standard VAT (Value Added Tax) that a UK citizen would also have to pay.
Umm … books are zero-rated for VAT over here, you know.
(Various other items you could order from Amazon UK are not, but books are.)
There are no special taxes that I know of on publishers in either country, although all I know for sure is the U.S.
It is true that all major publishers in the U.S. have a standard contract clause in which the book is published only in the U.S. and Canada. The equivalent in the U.K. is for the U.K. and Commonwealth countries. (Yes, that means that Canadians can sell both at retail, lucky bastards.)
Very few books are published simultaneously in both areas. The normal practice is for a book to be published in one or the other and then have its rights licensed to a publisher in the other region. I’ve always thought of this as an agreement rather than a matter of law (other than copyright), but I’m willing to be corrected.
Both Ponder Stibbons and Steve Wright are talking about books sold by retailers, a totally different thing legally and for tax purposes.
I’m not even sure that any protective tariffs against books were imposed after the Revolutionary War. There were few American publishers of note and even fewer American writers that anyone cared about. The vast majority of books were imported from England, and by the sort of people who could defeat protectionist taxes in Congress. I’m pretty sure that no tradition of publishing books in England the U.S. ever existed at any time, either. So everything in the OP seems to have some strikes against it.