I am not happy about the non-refundable taxes on sell orders (along with no penalties for canceling buy orders). This means that sellers of goods have substantially less flexibility than do buyers. I can say personally it's going to make me a lot more reluctant to put up sell orders, since I have no desire to lose money based on market fluctuations.
I do not see any strong rationale for making the tax on sell orders non-refundable; if you want to avoid having people game the system, the existence of the tax on accepted sell orders should be sufficient for that purpose.
Can anyone explain to me the reason that having the tax be paid regardless of whether an item is sold is an advantage in any way to promoting commerce or prevents some sort of exploit? (Other than making it harder for sellers to respond to market dynamics and therefore posting artificially depressed prices for their goods.)
Goods can be "hidden" from theft at a trade hub without ever placing a sell order and retrieved using an ordinary caravan as long as the player has a trader present, so this rule does not reflect or impose a penalty for using faction hubs to avoid theft.
If this was not implemented for any reason related to game mechanics and instead was put in place to simplify coding (such as how to assess tax on partially accepted sell orders), then I think that was a poor decision on the part of the developers.
At this time, I see the rule as being unnecessary and unfun. I am interested in people who disagree, in particular those who disagree based on some rationale other than "the developers worked hard and we are lucky to have an update."
Yes, the developers worked hard and lots of exciting changes are happening. That doesn't mean that every choice they have made is the right one.
So ... what are the benefits of this particular choice? I'm open to the possibility that this is a great feature I just don't fully appreciate yet.