Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
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Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#2So glad to see small companies like this get a leg up.
Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#3So glad to see small companies like this get a leg up.
Seems only fair that we pay our taxes when those are used to subsidize such lofty endeavours.
Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#4Now if they can actually do something with AI that is meaningful? I assume Mark is trying to reach for like some crazy goal instead of just getting reasonable products to market. I've known the type of person who chases the stars instead of just taking their time, building up the core and then snowballing into greatness.
Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#5> Hyperion will be exempt from state and local sales and use taxes on its data center equipment for the next 20 years, which includes the GPUs that train and develop AI models. Sherwood News estimated that since the state’s combined state and local sales tax stands at 9.56%, spending the roughly $35 billion for the GPUs of the center will hand the firm about $3.3 billion in tax breaks.
Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#6> Hyperion will be exempt from state and local sales and use taxes on its data center equipment for the next 20 years, which includes the GPUs that train and develop AI models. Sherwood News estimated that since the state’s combined state and local sales tax stands at 9.56%, spending the roughly $35 billion for the GPUs of the center will hand the firm about $3.3 billion in tax breaks.
If they are willing to spend 35B there's no doubt they could spend 30B without asking the government to reach into the people's wallet.
The US needs to do something about lobbying. It seems too late already, but maybe you can get things to improve a bit.
Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#7> Hyperion will be exempt from state and local sales and use taxes on its data center equipment for the next 20 years, which includes the GPUs that train and develop AI models. Sherwood News estimated that since the state’s combined state and local sales tax stands at 9.56%, spending the roughly $35 billion for the GPUs of the center will hand the firm about $3.3 billion in tax breaks.
If they are willing to spend 35B there's no doubt they could spend 30B without asking the government to reach into the people's wallet. The US needs to do something about lobbying. It seems too late already, but maybe you can get things to improve a bit.
It's tempting to blame any political outcome you don't like on lobbying. It allows you to believe that almost no one supports the outcome that you don't like, because you can blame it on politicians manage to be bought by a small number of lobbyists. But it might not be the case. Several states (I believe Texas, Georgia, and Indiana) don't charge sales tax to data centers. So from Louisiana's perspective, the alternative to the tax break might not be $3B in tax revenue, but $0 (as Meta would simply build elsewhere). I'm sure they still plan to collect income taxes for the temporary jobs created for the construction of the data center, and of the permanent jobs required to maintain it.
If states all worked together, they could plausibly prevent this race to the bottom by agreeing on a universal sales tax minimum, but there are many obstacles to that as well besides some vague sense of "lobbying". You'd want all states to work cooperate on their minimum tax, but every state has a big incentive to break from the cartel and offer lower taxes in exchange for getting all the datacenters built there. There are lobbyists who are working against this, but it's not just meta and google, it's also local utility companies and construction/trade unions (who all want their state to defect and be the one to get all the new money and jobs)
Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#8At this rate, it's almost an equal public-private cooperation - which would actually make more sense as it would give the public ownership over datacenters instead of creepy tech bros.
Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#9No one likes to see big companies avoid taxes.
But I don't see what other options are available for states to compete with each other if not through tax breaks.
Edit: I suppose if you ban tax breaks, if a state wants to be competitive, they still can but through modifying the tax code for everyone instead of giving certain people exceptions. That doesn't seem like a terrible alternative..
Re: Meta to receive $3.3B in tax breaks for its $10B Louisiana data center
#10> Entergy plans at least three new combined‑cycle gas plants totalling ≈2.26 GW specifically to serve Hyperion, with additional plants in the wider “AI build‑out” pipeline.