Marion's cigarette-tax exemption, border-city status has some fuming

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Cigarettes are a lot more expensive for Arkansans since the 56-cent-per-pack state tobacco tax increase became law in March, except for residents of border cities like Texarkana and Fort Smith, whose residents pay the tax rate of the neighboring states under Arkansas' border-city exemption law.

And thanks to Act 940 of 2009, passed by the Legislature this spring, so do the residents of the Crittenden County town of Marion.

The city of 11,058 doesn't actually border Tennessee, although many of its inhabitants work in Memphis.

But Marion, which borders West Memphis, is represented by a state representative with a family legacy at the Legislature and a keen eye for legal minutiae.

Rep. Keith Ingram, D-West Memphis, noticed during his research on the tobacco tax that the city of Barling, bordering Fort Smith, had benefited in the 1950s from a law giving them the right to pay Oklahoma's tax rate on the motor fuel. Barling doesn't border Oklahoma, but received border-city status - a border city of a border city, if you will.