Why are some state taxes higher than others?

Each level of government is not self-supporting, nor does it use all it receives in taxes for its own purposes. There is much sharing and passing around of the wealth.

My own town gets some funding from the state directly, some from sales tax collected and passed back to the town. All room taxes are remitted to the county, and 30% of it is rebated back to the town. Some of the road expenses are paid by the state, some by the town, some by the county. About half of the town’s municipal income is from property taxes collected by the county and passed thru to the town after an administration fee. Some of the town’s income comes from cable franchise fees collected by the cable company and remitted 100% to the town. Some comes from state and federal schemes designed to replace tax money NOT received due to special programs (forest preservation, land conservation, etc.). Some comes from fees charged directly – licenses, permits, adjudication of special requests, clerical fees.

And that’s just for a total local budget of less than a million dollars per year. I’m sure larger towns have much more complicated budgets.

So you can’t compare taxes at the cash register in different areas to find out what finances public spending.