As much as I despise European style VAT taxes, I feel like they do take a lot of questions out of these sorts of issues.

In general, I'm sure every state could use with a revamping of the entire tax code to make it easier to be compliant, though there is some amount of intentionality behind situations like this with the way the law is written.

Ultimately the problem for regular citizens here is that our motivations aren't in line with anyone else, so there's no one to support us without significant pressure being placed on them. This, 'mistake' leads to the state bringing in additional tax revenue, so there isn't going to be a lot of momentum on their side to get this fixed without an uproar from the taxbase that an issue like this is unlikely to cause.

I do think you conducted yourself very well on the interview and I agree with what you've stated there.