Maryland property tax is based on:

Basing tax on purchase price would create severe inequities — two identical neighboring homes bought in different years at different prices would carry vastly different tax burdens, violating uniformity principles and discouraging property sales.

Square footage is an overly simplistic metric that ignores location, condition, and market value — a 2,000 sq ft home in rural Maryland and a 2,000 sq ft home in Bethesda have dramatically different values and tax-generating capacities.

Income-based property taxation is not used in Maryland for standard real property; while income-producing properties may have their value estimated using income capitalization approaches during assessment, the tax itself is still levied on assessed value, not directly on the owner's income.