Ohio Suspends Data Center Tax Break as Opposition Grows

The state of Ohio — one of America's hot regions for data center construction — "is suspending a tax break that has been critical to its competition with other states," reports the Associated Press.

The move "comes as tax breaks for energy-hungry AI data centers are increasingly playing a role in state budgets," the article points out. But they also note the expanding data center industry "is under pressure to pay the full costs" The size of Ohio's tax break skyrocketed, dwarfing previous projections, as opposition to data centers is sweeping through cities, suburbs and towns there and prompting lawmakers to form a committee to study the impact. In the meantime, residents are trying to bypass the GOP-controlled Legislature and get a referendum on November's midterm election ballot that's designed to permanently ban hyperscale data centers, likely the strictest such statewide ban under consideration in the U.S... The state, in 2024, had used previous history in projecting that the exemption would total $136 million in fiscal 2025 and $142 million in fiscal 2026. It was $554 million in 2024 and nearly $1.6 billion in 2025, the state reported...

State tax breaks for the massive data center industry are facing growing criticism by governors and lawmakers... Thirty-eight states have some form of a sales tax break for data centers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures... [Though many were passed before 2022, when data centers were smaller.] Ohio's exemption is fairly broad, applying not only to construction materials, but to the expensive equipment — such as server racks and cooling systems — used in data centers. Operators might buy new server racks every couple of years as the technology improves.

Huh

[cascadingstylesheet]

In the meantime, residents are trying to bypass the GOP-controlled Legislature

Too much democracy going on?

You do know how it became "GOP-controlled", right? By voters actually voting for representatives?

Re:

[kqs]

Come for the voting, stay for the gerrymandering!

But yes, quite a few Ohio folks (and other Americans) are getting the day they voted for.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

This video always makes me giggle https://youtu.be/oZzgAjjuqZM?s... [youtu.be]

Re:

[sound+vision]

Going around the legislature is only the beginning of democracy. The next step is actually changing the legislature. That's expected to happen at the next opportunity, barring armed intervention at the polls.

Re:Huh

[dirk]

As someone who lives in Ohio, you couldn't be more wrong. While yes, the state is slightly conservative, the GOP has gerrymandered the state to the point they can't lose. While the state votes overall around 57% conservative, the GOP somehow miraculously has a veto proof majority in the state. The concept of democracy has gone out the window here and been replaced with win at all costs.

Re: Huh

[PsychoSlashDot]

To be fair, nobody ever should think "we lost the election so everything the winners do should be accept unopposed no matter how much harm it does." As long as the opposition means are legal, they shouldn't be scoffed at. Some are deliberate checks and balances against abuse by the elected. On-topic, why datacenters - which contribute nothing but tax money to a community - should be enticed with... a tax break is questionable at best. It's almost like building a landfill solely to accept someone else's

No that's not how it became GOP controlled

[rsilvergun]

Billionaire corruption and voter suppression is how it became GOP controlled. There are no red states. There are some States where people are allowed to vote in some States where people aren't.

In the last election they were over 3 million illegal challenges to signatures and registrations. Every single one of them requires someone to drive down to the courthouse on a weekday during business hours and prove that they are who they say they are even though there is virtually no fraud except from Republican

Re:

[Papaspud]

Property taxes—paying for fire, police, and emergency services that they will never use, plus some high-paying jobs taking care of it.. For poor counties these are giant revenue sources.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

They don’t pay taxes is the problem and other than trade workers during the construction process you’ll be lucky if the payroll breaks a dozen. All people do there is swap hardware when it fails.

Re:

[ambrandt12]

And, even if there are property taxes paid by whichever AI company, it probably won't add up to more than like a few cops salaries, or repaving 1/4 of the street in front of your house.

It's not about the benefit to the people, it's about getting AI into every aspect of our lives to the point where you have your AI assistant in every room (as a little speaker or something) and you can't do anything without it.
In the end, sure... maybe it'll somehow find the cure for cancer (which the AI outfit gladly sells t

Side effects hurt as well

[jacks smirking reven]

The term "datacenter" is also losing much of it's meaning and that is having consequences elsewhere.

For the past 4-5 years a local company has been building a new office/datacenter building as they are growing. Now this isn't some AI company building a multi-hundred-megawatt facility, this is a local company who does colocation, web hosting, servers, you know, all that stuff the term datacenter used to stand for. Doubly so that this company decided to make at least an interesting looking building instead of another flat, windowless white box.

Now on local social media this building has been swept up in opposition with folks repeating boundless conspiracy theories and wanting the whole thing shut down. You try explaining the difference but it's deaf ears. You even try and tell them "hey, their existing datacenter has been like 1 mile away for a decade and there is another, larger datacenter down the block that's been there better part of 3 decades and nobody has complained.

  Now on the one hand I also can empathize with them a bit, the layman isn't going to know the difference between those and these new AI centers but people are ready to spike an actual local company, a small business that has grown quite a bit, the exact thing we should be celebrating.

Once again I don't so much blame AI itself but it's proponents and the companies behind them. So far their tech and business is making so many things worse faster than it can do any of it's so called improvements.

The right wing hates direct democracy

[rsilvergun]

It's extremely difficult to manipulate and voter suppress when the voters can just throw something on the ballot and pass a law. They will try to manipulate that process by either making it very very difficult to get something on the ballot or by changing the wording on the ballot measures to confuse people. I remember a bunch of states did those cigarette bands and they were all sorts of weird wordings and rulings and tricks and shenanigans to try and prevent them.

One of my favorite TV commercials of a