Tax breaks for data centers in North Carolina keep as much as $57 million each year out of state and local government coffers, state figures show, an amount that could balloon to billions of dollars if all the proposed projects are built.
Despite these generous subsidies, data center owners are legally allowed to shield many of their financial details from state oversight. They aren’t required to prove their ongoing eligibility for the tax exemptions unless they are audited by the state Department of Revenue. Lawmakers enacted sales and use tax breaks for data centers in 2010 and expanded them in 2015.
“At that time, no one could have predicted the explosive growth of data centers and how much energy they consumed,” Gov. Josh Stein told his Energy Policy Task Force, which met this week. “And because data centers at that point were a brand-new industry, they benefited from financial incentives to induce capital to invest. Those days are long gone.”
Stop giving tax breaks! Fucking stop it. No more tax breaks for businesses. Fucking i dont care what they do, I dont care how much you want to incentivize shit, stop giving BUSINESSES OUR GODDAMN TAXES THEY ARE FOR THE PEOPLE TO BE USED TO BENEFIT THE PUBLIC YOU FUCKING SHITHEADS
Yeah they always get tax breaks that incentivize them treating the general public like shit.
A good example is in office mandates for tech workers because of tax incentives.
Why can’t our taxes be used to help us instead of hurting everyone except some rich duche
The common rationale for giving out tax breaks to businesses is that they provide jobs in the community. Whenever I read about some business getting a tax benefit where I live, it is usually put into the context of how many jobs they will be generating. The tax breaks are given to spur growth in the local community.
The thing is, a data center doesn’t really generate many jobs locally. Yes, there is construction work, but that’s not guaranteed to be done by local firms and is temporary anyway. Then, once a data center opens, there really isn’t that much staff needed to operate it. The whole point is you set up your stuff and it runs there without human intervention, 24/7/365.24 . There may be enough technicians to manage equipment installs, and other technicians that mind the power and cooling systems, but it’s a fraction of what other business with the same footprint would need.
So if your goal by handing out tax breaks is to create jobs, then data centers are not a good place to spend that money.
The common rationale is broken. It is used and abused to death. It needs to fucking stop. Businesses need to pay taxes. End of story.
The problem is from a financial perspective, no one gives a shit beyond the next quarter or two. With a big enough company vs a small enough town it’s trivial to grease a few palms at the local level to play ball.
Well said 🫡