(A) The Department of Motor Vehicles may issue to a licensed wholesale motor vehicle auction, upon application and payment of the required fee to the department, wholesale motor vehicle auction license plates. The license plates are exclusively for the use of transporting motor vehicles in the course of doing business as a wholesale motor vehicle auction and must not be attached permanently. The license plate expires twelve months from the month of issuance. The documentation evidencing transport in the ordinary course of doing business as a wholesale motor vehicle auction must be by form approved by the Department of Revenue. The form at all times must accompany the license plates. A person who does not use the license plate exclusively to transport motor vehicles in the course of doing business as a wholesale motor vehicle auction is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, must be fined five hundred dollars.

(B) Wholesale motor vehicle auction license plates must not be issued by the department unless the wholesale motor vehicle auction furnishes proof in a form acceptable to the department that it has a wholesale motor vehicle auction license as required by this article and that at least twenty sales of motor vehicles have taken place through the wholesale motor vehicle auction in the twelve months preceding its application for a license. The sales requirement may be waived by the department if the wholesale motor vehicle auction has been licensed for less than one year.

(C) A wholesale motor vehicle auction may be issued two license plates for the first twenty vehicles auctioned during the preceding year and one additional license plate for each fifty vehicles auctioned beyond the initial twenty during the preceding year but not to exceed seventy-five license plates. For good cause shown, the department in its discretion may issue additional license plates. If the wholesale motor vehicle auction has been licensed less than one year, the department shall issue a number of license plates based on an estimated number of sales for the coming year. The department may increase or decrease the number of license plates issued based on actual sales made.

(D) The cost of each wholesale motor vehicle auction license plate issued is twenty dollars annually.