An EAS tag polling system includes a plurality of EAS tags and a base station, wherein each of the tags transmits an acknowledgement to the base station. The base acknowledgments may be sent passively or actively in response to a request from the base station. The base station discriminates between each acknowledgment received and associates it to the tag from which it had been transmitted. From each acknowledgement received, the base station indicates that a positive response is associated with each of the tags from which the acknowledgement is received and a negative response is associated with each of the tags from which the acknowledgement is not received.