Vanity License Plates

I just never saw the draw of giving the state any extra money voluntarily. License plates are no exception to me I guess. I will give them what is required to get my plate and I really don't care what combination of letters and numbers they give me. I have nothing against it, just nothing I would ever consider doing.

Hi Trout,

You are pointing to a category that I hadn't thought about. There are also plates which support conservation or cancer cure or other worthwhile causes. I'm certainly on board with honoring the vets as well. I was thinking about a system that lets you pick "IMGREAT and stuff like that.

By the way, what kind of trout is on the plate? Do you get to pick? 10 bucks is a deal.

Both my w.ife and I have vanity plates, AGFC plates, i have a trout and she has a hummingbird the extra money goes to conservation projects. Also Arkansas has a great "vanity" plate for all veterans no matter what era you were in Korea, Vietnam, etc. also will show your branch of service. Cost is 10 bucks.

Hi Forum,

There's an article in the Wall Street Journal about new "revenue enhancement" strategies by States charging much higher rates for previously fairly cheap "vanity license plates" and even having auctions. Do you know what Arkansas is doing in this regard, and what do you think about the whole concept of "vanity plates?"

Here's an excerpt:

To boost state coffers, Texas sold a Dallas doctor a "PORSCHE" for $7,500.

Then it sold him "AMERICA" for $3,000.

Both were license plates, sold at auction. "I will get my American citizenship next month, so it means a lot to me," says Salman Waheed, an intensive-care physician. He also wanted "FERRARI," but dropped out when bidding for that one went too high -- eventually netting $15,000, the top price paid.

After years of selling vanity plates as a modest sideline -- charging as little as $5 -- states think there's more money to be made in whatever drives people to buy them. Facing budget crunches, states are raising surcharges or proposing annual fee hikes for custom plates.

Texas has gone a step further. It hired a private company to raise $25 million over the next five years by auctioning off vanity plates. "People like to express themselves, especially in Texas," says a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. This year, at the nation's first such auction, Texas sold 33 plates for $139,400.

In the U.S., there's room for vanity to grow. Despite having 9.3 million motor vehicles with vanity plates, the 46 states that charged annual fees for them collectively raised only about $177 million, according to a 2007 study by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

"The potential market is huge," says Stefan Lonce, who conducted the survey and whose own plate is "LCNS2ROM."

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/113002/creative-license-plates-wsj?mod=family-autos