Utah Set To Exempt NSA Datacenter From Power Tax, After All

Nerval's Lobster writes "They may not all support what the NSA will do with its giant new datacenter in Bluffdale, but Utah officials do seem to agree on the value of having a world-class, $1.5 billion datacenter built in their territory. In general, they're for it, and are proving that by changing a law that would have added about $2.4 million in taxes to the datacenter's power bill—an addition that was an unpleasant surprise to NSA officials when they heard about it in May. A bill signed into law April 1 imposed a tax of up to 6 percent on electricity from Rocky Mountain Power, a requirement the NSA protested in an email to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert April 26. State tax agencies swear they informed the NSA about the impact of the law when it was still under debate; NSA officials denied knowing anything about it and complained that it would make Utah a less attractive site for the datacenter, which was only three to four months from completion at the time."

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Re:Regarding this story:

[icebike]

Sigh.....

The State of Utah would get far more in tax revenue from the feds if it could tax the power this site is going to use.

Some of that tax money would be paid by Utah citizens via their Federal Income tax, but the overwhelmingly vast majority of it would come from the rest of the US tax payers in other states.

As it stands now, Utah tax payers are going to have to pick up the slack for the free-loading federal government.