Local
Mason County’s proposed Meta data center may pay about $7 million a year instead of $59 million in local taxes
A Kentucky policy group estimates a tentative agreement could reduce Meta’s annual payments to Mason County and its schools by roughly $52 million. The deal’s 40-year tax arrangement would come on top of a possible state sales-tax break worth more than $400 million for the project’s first phase.
A proposed Meta data center campus in Mason County could pay about $7 million a year to the county and local schools under a tentative agreement, compared with an estimated $59 million in annual local property taxes if the project were taxed without the arrangement, according to an analysis by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
The group estimates the difference at roughly $52 million annually. Its analysis examines industrial revenue bonds that would exempt the campus from local property taxes. The tentative community benefits agreement calls for Meta to make annual payments of about $5 million to the county and $2 million to the school district instead.
The agreement would provide the bonds for 40 years. The project’s initial phase is expected to involve billions of dollars in investment, according to details in the agreement.
Jason Bailey, the center’s executive director, described the analysis as a rough estimate based on assumptions, including how much of the campus’s taxable value would be equipment rather than land and buildings. He said the group sought to show the potential scale of the local tax reduction and warned against making the arrangement a model for other data center projects in Kentucky.
The estimates do not include a separate state sales-tax exemption for data center equipment. The center estimates that break could exceed $400 million for the project’s initial phase. A state economic development board is scheduled to consider the exemption later this month, while some Republican lawmakers have suggested they may seek to roll back the broader sales-tax break when the legislature reconvenes next year.
Meta’s involvement in the proposed Mason County project became public at a fiscal court meeting this month. The project had been under discussion without the company’s identity being disclosed for more than a year.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the analysis. Mason County Judge-Executive Owen McNeill, who supports the project, also did not immediately respond to requests for an interview.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, recently reached a multistate settlement over claims concerning effects of its products on young people. Kentucky is expected to receive $358 million under that deal.