I thougth there were taxes on goods you purchased? I remember taxes being even different from one county to the next?
Sales tax. It's a little different than a VAT tax. It is a tax on the final purchase price. VAT adds tax all along the path of production and sale.
Yes, taxes depend on where you live. There are federal taxes for SSI, Medicare, the federal gas tax, and others depending on what you are doing. States have taxes too and they are often more than federal taxes in total. Those are usually sales tax, property tax, income tax, gas tax, and depending on where you live, a tax on the air you breath! :-D
In my state there is no sales tax, in Washington state, there is no income tax. That sounds really good, but they get you with high "fees" for things like car registration, gas, etc.
In the design of the US, the states were meant to have more power than the federal government. This way, if we did not like what our state did we had more control. If we couldn't change things we could move to a state that was more to our liking and needs.
Even with all those taxes, ours are generally lower overall than what is paid in Europe. We also have graduated taxes so that the wealthy pay more. You will never hear me bash the wealthy. They pay the majority of the taxes!