> I'm also genuinely curious how the exemption doesn't by definition make it no longer uniform. How does any exemption at all not violate the uniformity requirement?
That's the part that I'm assuming is going to get fought out in court when this is inevitably challenged. The state will likely try to argue that it's not a property tax, but an excise tax. They used that argument in support of the capital gains tax, and won (Quinn vs. Washington State, 2023), stating that the tax was an excise tax on the privilege of selling assets. The WA supreme court ruled that the tax was a permissible excise tax and not a property tax, so did not run afoul of the constitution.
They'll likely argue that the millionaire tax is an excise tax on the privilege of participating in the state's economy.
Alternatively, they may try to define high income as a new class of property. Property taxes only have to be uniform within a specific class of property, so if they create a new class, then it would be uniform for that class.
Should be an interesting court battle.
