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A WA Tax Break for Data Centers Became One of Their Biggest Corporate Giveaways

Companies have saved $474 million since 2018, with most of the windfall going to Washington-based tech giant Microsoft. Lawmakers repeatedly expanded who qualifies, and they lowered the number of jobs expected in return.

In 2010, as the country still reeled from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, tech companies, real estate developers and rural lobbyists went to the state Capitol in Olympia, Washington, to press for a tax break for data centers. The only state audit ever released publicly, seven years ago, found that based on the number of tax break recipients at the time, data centers could eventually meet the jobs requirement by collectively hiring as few as 260 workers. Then-Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, one of the bill’s sponsors, emailed lobbyist Rob Makin, who represented Sabey Corp., a Seattle-area real estate development company that evolved into building and leasing data centers.

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