I have had my MA plates for 5 cars.
I change cars at 300K miles.
Good God, where is that? Annual license and registration has never (NEVER!) cost me more than about 70 dollars, and any difference is due to the county portion, not the state portion.
Before 1999 the licensing fee in the SoW included an excise tax (pretty near the closest thing we had to a personal property tax). IIRC the rate itself wasn’t particularly onerous, but the amount was based on a value table that originated in some alternate universe where cars are worth magnitudes more than they are here. Any number of people (including yours truly) protested, but the Legislature did nothing.
Enter Tim Eyman (or “I”-man, as he is less charitably known). He filed an initiative to eliminate the excise tax and set vehicle registration at a flat $30. The initiative passed overwhelmingly, but was ruled unconstitutional on a number of grounds. The Legislature, however, became aware of the heat and eliminated the excise tax.
A side effect was that Eyman found that he liked being a public hero, and that there was more money to be made as a professional initiative filer than as a fraternity watch salesman (his previous profession)*. Nearly every year since then we’ve been subjected to one or more “starve the beast” proposals, with occasional forays into social conservatism. I haven’t kept a running total, but my recollection is that relatively few succeed (they fail to get enough signatures to qualify, fail at election, or get thrown out afterward); still, he has enough success to keep him in business.
*A few years back he was accused of skimming contributions to his PAC for personal use. He first denied it, then admitted it, then claimed it was a non-issue that the “liberal establishment” was attempting to use to derail his righteous crusade.
In South Carolina it’s a new plate every other year.
One big downside, though, was the effect on car owners in lower income brackets. Specifically, people who aren’t set up to be replacing their car with a brand new one every 3-5 years, or people who simply can’t afford to do more than buy an old, used beater. Under the old system, the excise tax/registration fee went down every year to a certain minimum, so poorer people could look forward to paying a lower fee each year. IIRC, this “floor” was something like $12. Eyman’s flat $30 fee basically more than doubled what some lower-income people were paying previously. Then factor in the additional fees and surcharges the state added on top of the $30 to make up for the revenue lost when the excise tax was eliminated, and these people are paying even more. Eyman basically got a progressive tax replaced by a regressive tax.
Illinois finally issued new plates to everyone (with a new design) in 2001, after the Secretary of State’s office (the Illinois version of the DMV) complained for years that they didn’t have the budget to issue new plates. At that point, it’d been 18 years since Illinois had issued new plates, and many people’s plates were at least a decade old (and, thus, were in pretty bad shape).
I’m not sure if you had to switch to the new plates, though ISTR that the 2001 renewal was new plates (rather than stickers) to everyone. That said, I do occasionally still see plates with the old design on a car, so I may well be mistaken.
And Eyman’s problem with this is . . . ?
Well, then I’ve had this number since 1991, and the plates themselves since 2001. Either way, I think this year they need to be replaced. This is the set/number we transfered from the old van to this one.
And here I was thinking $99 was a lot of money for a yearly registration, but I guess we’re doing better than some places.
Florida did.
I remember one year they sent me my new plate and the number was C10 FRT which looks a bit like see ten fart. For those 5 years I had a couple of friends who referred to my van as “the fart mobile”. No, they weren’t kids, they were adults, middle aged adults. :rolleyes: I was very happy when I got my new plate and it didn’t look like it spelled anything.
Don’t know about NY, haven’t been here long enough.
I don’t understand the question.
Here in Pennsylvania I recall getting new plates once or twice. I seem to recall that everyone did it more or less at the same time (within a year or two) but I could be remembering wrong. I think it’s done irregularly when the state feels that it’s necessary rather than being done on a regular basis.
Sorry, I was trying to be somewhat humorous (and, as usual, failing miserably). Since Eyman isn’t among those being regressed, he doesn’t have any problem with the fact that the new system is slanted against lower-income vehicle owners.
Florida: When you renew your registration, you get a sticker for your plate. Every fifth year they send you a new plate instead of a sticker.
Also, the plates are registered to the owner, not the vehicle. When you get a new car, you put your old plate on it.