Yeah the Canadian dollar can make big items a lot less palatable to purchase I’m sure. But I think it’s fair to charge sales tax or whatever combined provincial tax when you buy something from a store that has a business license. Canada has a wider social safety net than the US, so none of that is free.Here, if you buy from a "store", we have 'provincial' and the "H.S.T." (ie: Harmonized Sales Tax) in others areas where the Provincial tax was merged with the G.S.T. (Goods & Services Tax). Suffice it to say, if you buy something privately, no tax is applied and if you get it from an actual registered 'store', I think it's based on the province it's being shipped to. Here, we pay 15% on prctically everything except certain groceries & medications.
For example, if I were to buy a $1,000 amp or guitar at a store, they automatically tack on an extra $150 for taxes. As far as I know, the Maritime Provinces have the highest tax rates in the country mainly because it's not a very economically strong area.
Now you know why I scratch my head when people post about how 'cheap' such & such pedals/amps/guitars are because if you were to buy them up here, add (roughly) 30% for the exchange rate and then another 15% sales tax and heaven forbid you order it online where they don't have free shipping. Want an Axe III and live up here ? You could buy a half decent used car for the same or even less.
What’s happening on Reverb right now for US customers is that sales tax is being remitted between people for private sales over and over again. I don’t think that was ever intended of how state sales tax was supposed to work. I understand paying state sales tax from a shop that’s out of state, but not between individuals.