ST. LOUIS — St. Louis city officials say ticketing just isn't going to cut it anymore when it comes to temporary tags
“The temp tag issue in St. Louis and in Missouri as a whole goes back decades,” Conner Kerrigan with St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ Office said.
Kerrigan said in 2023 St. Louis Police wrote more than 32,000 tickets for expired temp tags and plates.
“It makes our streets less safe because there's folks on the streets who don't have insurance driving around,” Kerrigan said.
Missouri Rep. Gretchen Bangert, (D)-St. Louis County, said one of the biggest barriers is the immediate cost of the sales tax drivers have to pay at the DMV.
“There are some people out there that they're like, wow, I'm not going to pay, I'm not going to get in trouble for not paying and if I do get a ticket, it's going to be 100 bucks or 200 bucks, that's a lot cheaper than paying $1,500,” Rep. Bangert said.
She said it also can be a lack of education on the subject.
“If I'm being honest, I think a lot of folks don't realize that when you purchase a vehicle, you have to pay that tax on it,” Bangert said.
The Missouri Legislature did put a law in place last year that would allow the sales tax to be collected at the dealership and will simultaneously communicate that to the Department of Revenue.
“But unfortunately, our computer system is so old in the state, it's going to be another probably a couple of years until it’s fully in place,” Bangert said.
So in the meantime, St. Louis is using $350,000 of the city's budget to loan St. Louis drivers money for insurance and sales tax to get up-to-date plates so they don't have to pay it all at once.
“What we want folks to walk away with is not just updated tags and insurance, but an understanding and a better financial literacy, a better financial education, so we can avoid this going into the future,” Kerrigan said.
The city said they are still trying to find a vendor or company to put this program in place and hope to get it up as soon as possible.
Once that happens they will have more information on how these loans will work to make this program as accessible as possible.