Ben Tusa

SpaceX’s Arizona data center, per a county supervisor: “We could be reducing property taxes across the board in Cochise County, the entire county, by 20%” Frank Antenori, whose district includes the site, brought up the county’s tax math during a live Q&A: “Here’s just something to just chew on. Arizona has an expenditure limit requirement that is placed on counties. If we exceed that expenditure, we have to rebate back to the taxpayers a certain amount.” “So, if we’re receiving revenue in from SpaceX, by law, we have to offset that to the taxpayers. We have the potential to reduce, based on the projected revenue they’re creating, as much as 20%.” “Let me just say it again. We could be reducing property taxes across the board in Cochise County, the entire county, by 20% to offset for the revenue here, because we can’t spend all that money. So, we have to give that money back to the taxpayers. The law says we have to.” “So, you could see a potential significant impact to local property taxes. What that is, I don’t know. We’re going to have to do the math on it. But the law, if we have this large increase in property tax revenue, we have to balance those rates. So that will reduce dramatically the property tax burden of every resident in the county.” “The construction sales tax, which also is the TPT, the transaction privilege tax, the retail tax, and the jail excise tax. So that will be part of the construction tax. We could literally use that money to pay the jail off in 2 to 3 years, as opposed to the 13 to 20 years.” “So this could be a revenue to eliminate the half-cent sales tax in 2 to 3 years. We can get rid of that half-cent sales tax.”