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erronis

(24,061 posts)
Wed Apr 15, 2026, 09:55 AM Yesterday

US states can't account for datacenter tax breaks. Literally -- The Register

https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/15/us_states_gaap_datacenters/
Dan Robinson

Many US states and local authorities are violating generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) by failing to disclose revenue lost to datacenter tax subsidy schemes, according to Good Jobs First.

The accountability nonprofit has a bee in its bonnet about tax abatement programs for datacenters, which it says are costing states billions in lost revenue, yet few bother to report this.

In a new report, "Data Center Tax Abatements: Why States and Localities Must Disclose These Soaring Revenue Losses," it names 14 states that are failing to disclose their tax shortfall due to server farms, and claims scores of local authorities are doing the same.

. . .

Three states are losing $1 billion or more per year, the report finds. Georgia stands at $2.5 billion, Virginia at $1.94 billion, and Texas at $1 billion.

. . .
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dutch777

(5,090 posts)
1. Incetnivizing these makes no sense. They create few jobs after construction and have long term infrastructure impacts.
Wed Apr 15, 2026, 11:29 AM
Yesterday

You may as well be building warehouses as they have low job creation too but less impacts other than maybe truck traffic.

erronis

(24,061 posts)
3. Obviously some state and local officials will make out nicely from these deals.
Wed Apr 15, 2026, 01:05 PM
Yesterday

But they will probably need to move far away in the future.

dutch777

(5,090 posts)
4. Where I am in eastern PA, after ICE detention centers the next biggest push back from voters is data centers and...
Thu Apr 16, 2026, 08:05 AM
9 hrs ago

...even just the giant warehouses like Amazon. The latter is about truck traffic mostly. I actually interviewed with Amazon a few years ago for a managerial position in their facility design and construction division. My background was in hospitals and I could not figure out why they reached out to me. Turns out that whole interest Amazon showed in drones was not primarily about home delivery, it was about building giant fulfillment centers that rather than humas pulling stock from shelves and packing it to send to all of us, it would be drones ad robots. They thought my understanding of complex building systems integration would help them go from basic warehouses to buildings far more complex. And their thought was to rather than build huge and sprawling single story warehouses, they would build taller strictures as the drones wouldn't care and it would lower amount of land needed. They were way too poorly structured in their departmental organization for me to consider it but it was an interesting discussion. I suspect they gave up on the idea as it's been years and they seemed real intent on moving that direction but I haven't seen anything that indicates they even built a prototype. Given staffing their fulfillment centers is supposedly one of their biggest HR headaches I really thought they'd at least try it somewhere.

erronis

(24,061 posts)
5. Interesting. Perhaps they were also looking at drone-delivered medicines.
Thu Apr 16, 2026, 10:17 AM
7 hrs ago

Or perhaps they are already doing that.

They do have the Amazon Health group. I could see home-delivered meds via drones (or self-driving cars) being "viable".

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