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.

One of Washington’s largest corporate tax breaks has grown alongside a data center boom in Central Washington, including this data center in East Wenatchee owned by the Sabey Corp. Despite forgoing more than $474 million since 2018, the state can’t say how many jobs were created by the tax break. During that same time frame, it also hasn’t evaluated whether the revenue loss was worth it.

  • @[email protected]English
    -16•1 month ago

    So what, people need cloud services and Netherlands did the same and became one of the top spot for datacenters in Europe and nobody is bitching around.

    • @[email protected]
      25•1 month ago

      Needing something is one thing, tax payer subsidies is another topic entirely. State tax payers have now all chipped in for these Data centers and the question is was it worth it for them.