Hi Steve,

Make another trip with your plate in hand is crazy. At best I would mail it to them, a friend or relative and have them drop it off.

I say this because here in California I found a plate laying on the side of the road with current valid stickers.
I took the plate into my local DMV office about 250 miles away in my county. I thought they should notify the owner about his missing plate.
I gave it to the girl and she took it from me and dropped the aluminum plate right into the can next to her.
I asked aren't you going to flag the plate or look up anything related to the plates information?
She said no, it just goes into the recycling bin.
The owner will have to buy a new replacement whenever he finds out its missing. It all works out then.
So basically it's all computer followed, the plate means nothing. It's the VIN number and title assignment that counts.

Now in Nevada the plate is owned by the owner of the car and stays with that person to be on to the next vehicle.
I had to purchase a paper permit to drive the NV car to CA. That paper permit gets placed on the front windshield.
The permit costs $21 for three days and goes up from there the longer it takes you to get the car out of state.
My plan was to drive straight home from Reno but got stopped before I made it to the state line.
The officer saw the car was missing the plate but could not see or did see the paper but pulled me over anyway!
He said that people place a piece of paper in the front because that's the directions on the back of the permit and some put it in the back window by mistake or of which, could possibly be a dead give away that something could not be right.
Basically you get stopped, so he can read it. IT WORKED! I was on the road less than an hour!

What was cute and quite funny, as he got out of the patrol car, my wife drove up behind us both in another Volvo.
He turned and took note that it was also a Volvo with a California plate.
As I rolled down the window he smiled and said, " Let me guess, you owned that one back there too."

So there are two ways that the plate doesn't matter. When it comes to insurance companies and law enforcement being linked together by computers you are found out in less than ten minutes.
That card you have is only there to make the person you have an accident with, feel better that you have insurance and a contact for them.

Since you mentioned that a tax collector is involved, does that mean that Florida has a personal property tax?
With boats and gators down there, you might have to watch out where the next bite may come from! (:-)

Phil