New AR tax drives more of my business to MO.

The Tucson cigs I buy at the Superette in Mammoth Spring AR cost $1.20 a pack, pre-tax. With the taxes added on, it comes to $1.40 a pack. Or at least it did. With the increase of the Arkansas state sales tax, it now will come to either $1.41 or 1.42.

Discount Liquor & Tobacco in Thayer sells the same brand for $1.41, pre-tax, $1.50 post-tax. And it is almost two miles (four miles round trip) closer to my house.

My car gets about 20 mpg. The extra four miles therefore uses a fifth of a gallon of gas. At $1.819 per gallon, it costs $.36 to drive the extra four miles.

So the actual cost of buying my Tucsons in Arkansas is now $1.78 per pack, unless I buy in bulk, which I rarely do. As opposed to $1.50 per pack buying in Thayer.

So now, Arkansas, you have lost the tax revenue from the cigarettes I WAS buying, by raising the sales tax to generate MORE revenue.