Tax Breaks For Data Centers: The Numbers Might Be Cloudy

States are competing aggressively to attract data centers with various tax incentives. Data center companies and their business customers are taking them up on their offers. But are these incentives really a good deal for the businesses? Tax incentives that seem attractive at first glance may not be beneficial when they are examined in the context of the entire tax picture, especially in the unique, uncertain, and developing world of state taxation of technology and computer services.

With the rise of global commerce, cloud computing, streaming video and a wide array of other internet-related businesses, data centers have become big businesses. In 2014, the colocation data center industry reached $25 billion in annual revenue globally, with North American companies accounting for 43 percent of that revenue.¹