Why Is The State Sales Tax A Fixed Percentage? Does The Revenue Go Towards Paying State Debt?

Sales taxis based on the cost of the sale therefor the more you can afford the presumption is the more you can afford to pay sales tax. Sales tax is used for a lot of different things such as funding the city that collects the sales tax. This funding is related to such things as paying county, city and manciple employee salaries, retirement, police, firemen, sanitation workers, staff positions in offices and other things like garbage collections, maintenance of parks and other public functions and amenities.  Some cities do not collect the tax or it may be more or less than where you live. The basis of the tax however is in the cost of the purchases made. So the more expensive of an item the more it will costs you. This money rarely goes to pay off debt as that is a different fund and most of these monies have specific use regulations and these can't be changed. The increase needs of the city and wages paid and other related costs increases are all part of the system. Just as you making more money is part of your goal the sales tax goal is to tax a portion of those that have more to spend.

In a perfect world that would work. But the problem is not how much is coming in but how well it is managed. Think about this if you owned a business and kept spending more the what you made you would be out of business in a relatively short period of time. Well in affect that what the people running the states are doing. Everyone of them has pet projects that need funding but unfortunately no one has the nerve to say wait a minute there is not enough money coming in on a constant flow to fund all these things. Which ones will really help are situation by providing more of an income back to the state once its completed? Then they never bother figuring out which one cost the least and go with that one.