In browsing eBay for car parts I often see ‘tax disc holders’ offered. I understand that the tax itself is the Vehicle Excise Duty, which seems to be analogous to the U.S. annual vehicle registration fee. Here we put a sticker on our license plates to indicate we have renewed our registration. But tax disc holders seem to be decorative. If the tax disc is put on top, that would seem to defeat the purpose of a decorative holder. If it’s placed on the other side, then either the decorative logo would have to point inward toward the car’s occupants, or else the tax disc mightn’t be visible from the outside.
So how is a tax disc holder used? Why not apply the tax sticker directly to the vehicle?
Because it isn’t a sticker, just a non-sticky paper disc. It’d fall apart in the rain if stuck to the outside of the vehicle.
It’s slipped into the disc holder, which is in turn stuck to the inside of the windscreen, so that the tax information on the disc can be seen from the outside.
A sticker for that and insurance would be a handy thing for the police. I have a holder for the MOT discs they now distribute to show my car has been put through the test, it would seem logical to have one for insurance too for police at roadside checks.
Just to be clear (although I suspect you already know this) insurance documents are carried within the car or on the person of the driver. The tag is only to show registration. Here’s a picture. The red sticker shows the month of registration, and the black one shows the expiry year. Locations vary between states (e.g., in California the month sticker is in the left corner and the year sticker is in the right corner), and the year sticker’s colour changes from year to year for quick identification. Only the year sticker (IME) is changed. The month sticker is the original one one gets with the plate.
A ‘tax disc holder’ in the old days was just that - an attachment either inside or outside the windscreen, which showed the tax disc to anyboy who cared to see.
Meant to say, a lot of coaches still have a whole tree of them, look at the corners of the windscreen as you board (and chat to the drivers en route, they’re quite happy to fill in the gaps in our knowledge)
In the UK you have up to 3 days to produced documents you don’t have in the car at a police station nearby, always thought it would be handy to have it stated on the windscreen that you have all of this so the police can save some time (for you and them).
BTW, thats the MG you were posting restoration threads about not so long ago. Looks nice, especially the paint job, I’ve seen a few MGs and Jags in that colour, suits them nicely.
Aha. I’ve seen a photo similar to that. Only as in the linked photo, the back wasn’t shown. I guess the ones with the logo on the back are to remind the driver or passenger what kind of car he’s in?
Usually they’re not anything to do with the car model and make - they’re often freebies selling something - mine says “Quinn Direct”, which came free with my insurance policy. If you want a genuine British tax disc holder, email me your address and I’ll mail you one.
Thanks. The htread is here. I wasn’t too keen on Old English White when I was a kid, but opted for it for the restoration. It’s grown on me quite a bit.
In addition to the sticker on the license plate (or the tag on the tag, as I like to say) the paper registration certificate must also be carried in the car. This may seem redundant, but I’ve had my registration sticker stolen twice. Since then I’ve taken to scoring them with a razor knife so that they can’t be removed in one piece.
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I never understood why some states put the reg on the plate. Here in New York, it gets pasted to the inside of the windscreen, on the driver’s side, just close enough to the dashboard that scraping the old one off every two years becomes a twenty- to thirty-minute affair.
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We had something similar in Colorado, but, it wasn’t vehicle registration, it was for safety then emission checks. They discontinued that a few years ago for some reason.
In New York we’ve got that, too. The inspection/emissions tag is placed to the right of the registration tag (as seen from the outside of the windscreen).
