US taxpayers being kept in the dark over datacenter subsidies

The US datacenter industry is reaping huge benefits from state-level subsidies, but transparency around these incentives is limited and states that do calculate their returns find they are losing money on the deals.

Hundreds of billions is being lavished on datacenter construction across the country, however, a report published today claims many of these projects are being funded at the expense of taxpayers, with few states confirming the names of the beneficiaries.

Cloudy Data, Costly Deals: How Poorly States Disclose Data Center Subsidies is published by Good Jobs First, a non-profit body focused on corporate and government accountability. It points to 36 states where economic development subsidies for server farm projects mean that building materials and IT equipment are exempt from sales and use taxes.

The report claims only 11 states actually disclose which companies are receiving subsidies, and even then the disclosure is typically just the name of a Limited Liability Company (LLC) set up to develop the project, concealing which parent tech corporation is ultimately benefiting.