Isn't California already notorious for having a bunch of people who make money here but try to cheat out of the high state income taxes by claiming residence in another state? As I understand, whatever you make in California, you owe taxes on to the state even if you live in Alaska or something.
Now Kara, how stupid generally are rich people when it comes to cheating on taxes? The type of person who would take advantage of this program is obviously in a higher income group and I could see some of them assuming that they could just underestimate future tax burdens and then moving out of state as WFH gives them that flexibility. It would be hilarious if this is a big ol' tax trap meant to create some juicy, low-hanging targets for their auditors but that might be too galaxy brain for a government.
You're discussing related but distinct things. California has a reputation for being aggressive in claiming
tax residency. California taxes worldwide income (like the federal government does for individual taxpayers) for its tax residents. Sometimes this spills into messy disputes that drag on for years, but in my experience it mostly means that it's a pain in the ass to switch from resident to nonresident without an unambiguous exit from the state.
For nonresidents California taxes on a territorial basis. Your example of an Alaska resident paying California income tax on California income is an example of this. Territorial taxation is both commonplace and uncontroversial and is how state income taxes work generally speaking. (Sometimes states have reciprocity agreements with their neighbors wherein you can work in one but only have to pay state income tax to your tax home.)
I assume the program will operate kind of like gift cards do but for pennies on the dollar. i.e. You pay $60,000 for a $100,000 tax voucher that can be utilized throughout the useful life of the voucher. I don't believe you could game such a system in the manner you proposed; if you underestimated your future tax liabilities you'd just be paying closer to dollars on the dollar. I'm not quite sure what kind of taxpayer this is for yet.
In my experience stupid high income taxpayers are the ones who live far beyond their means and try to subsidize it by engaging in various shades of tax evasion. Unless this program is comically susceptible to fraud I don't think it's capable of being a honeypot.