Is it legal to remove your own license plates if they're out of date and your car's going to get towed because of it?

The plates have expired. Can one remove expired license plates off of their car before it’s towed?

I realize we can just renew the registration, however…the car itself is very old, from the eighties. Perhaps we just want the impound to keep the car and we’ll give them the title but we’ll keep the plates, since they’re expired anyway.