Cracking down on the car-tab break for “classic” cars

Plus two bills to limit layoffs and some recommended reading

About a decade ago, my father gave me the 1973 MGB convertible that my grandfather bought new when I was eight years old. As one does, I promptly drove it to a golf tournament, where one of my fellow players complimented me on my new old ride before posing this blunt question: 

“But why are you letting Sound Transit gouge you?”¹

Baffled, I asked what he was talking about. In response, he gestured to the license plate on his own vehicle, a thoroughly dilapidated—some might even say busted-ass—SUV from the 1980s. Sure enough, it read “Collector Vehicle”. It’s a special plate you can get for a vehicle more than 30 years old that exempts you from the annual state registration fee and, more lucratively, from the motor vehicle excise tax levied within Sound Transit’s borders, which is currently 1.1%, or $220 per year if your rig is worth $20,000. 

Here was a guy who bought, maintained, and most significantly, drove, a raggedy jalopy worth less than his golf clubs just so he could keep a few of his Ben Franklins out of Sound Transit’s coffers.² That, dear readers, is a man of rigid principle.