And I will clarify SCOTUS doesn’t have the power to change a fine/penalty into a tax, because they are not the originators of legislation, they don’t write, they interpret, not completely redefine. This is legislation from the bench against original intent of those that created the legislation - who argued vehemently this was NOT A TAX. By doing so SCOTUS deliberately rewrites the law against what the originators of the legislation declared it to be. Therefore proof they have legislated from the bench, a power SCOTUS does not possess as the Judicial Branch, not the Legislative Branch.
From the dissent:
“Of course in many cases what was a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty could have been imposed as a tax upon permissible action; or what was imposed as a tax upon permissible action could have been a regulatory mandate enforced by a penalty. But we know of no case, and the Government cites none, in which the imposition was, for constitutional purposes, both. The two are mutually exclusive.
[....]
In a few cases, this Court has held that a ‘tax’ imposed upon private conduct was so onerous as to be in effect a penalty. But we have never held – never – that a penalty imposed for violation of the law was so trivial as to be in effect a tax.”