VLOOKUP formula probelms

Hi all, I'm not exactly new to scratch but I am new to this formula called VLOOKUP. I understand what it's supposed to do, but for the project I'm working on, I can't get it to work. I must be entering in something wrong.
Basically, I need to create a VLOOKUP table that will calculate the tax percentage of a certain amount in $ from another sheet. I have one large table with around 300 varying values on the first sheet, a sorted version of that table on the second sheet, and a tax table on the third sheet that looks like this:
Tax Table
NY 8.49%
NJ 6.97%
PA 6.34%
CT 6.35%
MA 6.25%
NC 6.80%
Please let me know if you need any more information that may help. I'm also supposed to use absolute reference somewhere within the cell reference of the VLOOKUP, I believe. Thanks in advance.