The AI industry’s data centers aren’t belching pollution, driving their neighbors bonkers with screeching noise, and using up vast amounts of power and water. They’re also allowing companies to exploit tax breaks to save billions of dollars on their federal tax bill.
As the New York Times reports, Meta is writing off its enormous, multibillion-dollar data center construction projects as “pilot models,” a Reagan-era tax credit originally intended to support companies dabbling in potentially risky research and experimentation.
Put differently, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company is telling the IRS that its data center buildouts are far from guaranteed to pay off in order to claim billions of dollars in tax credits.
The news comes amid a major public backlash to the facilities, a bipartisan movement that has grown so much, it could prove influential in the upcoming midterm elections. Knowing that the companies’ plans are being used to avoid taxes is likely to infuriate an already extremely wary public.
