Is the floating taskbar supposed to be a window?

I have noticed that the recent updates to Plasma has resulted in my taskbar now showing up in my task switcher (alt-tab) like a regular app. Is this by design, or is it a bug?

That’s strange - regular plasma taskbars never show up as applications in the switcher.

This sounds like a bug. Does this reproduce after a reboot (or log out and log in)? Can you share a screenshot?