JEFFERSON CITY – State Senator Jason Bean is leading the charge to provide Missouri families with immediate property tax relief when major data centers are built in their communities.
“When a data center comes into a community, local governments see the benefit right away. My legislation ensures that local residents, families, homeowners, farmers and small businesses see that benefit immediately too, not years down the road, by providing them with significant property tax relief,” Bean said. “This is about fairness and transparency. If a data center dramatically expands the tax base, taxpayers deserve to see their rates go down immediately. This property tax relief legislation guarantees that the economic growth stemming from data centers works for everyone.”
Under current law, local jurisdictions receive additional tax revenue per year, while other taxpayers see no immediate reduction in their rates. Under Bean’s proposal, tax rates would be rolled back immediately to maintain revenue neutrality, resulting in immediate annual tax relief distributed among taxpayers in the impacted jurisdictions.
Bean’s bill (Senate Bill 1790) proposes an improvement to the implementation of the HancockAmendment. The Hancock Amendment requires political subdivisions to reduce property taxrates when assessed valuations increase due to reassessment, with limited exceptions. Under current law, property tax rate reductions do not immediately apply to “new construction.” As a result, when a large-scale data center is built and added to a jurisdiction’s assessed valuation, local taxing jurisdictions receive a substantial revenue increase, but taxpayers in that district often must wait at least two years before seeing any reduction in their tax rates.Bean’s legislation closes that gap by requiring data centers to be immediately included in rollback calculations. This ensures that any real or personal property taxes paid by a data center result in a corresponding reduction in the tax rates paid by all taxpayers within the same taxing jurisdiction. Bean stated, “Festus, Missouri currently has a proposed six-billion-dollar data center. Under my bill it would reduce property taxes would immediately decrease by over 80% for all residents.”
Bean’s legislation reinforces the Hancock Amendment’s principle of revenue neutrality by preventing large-scale data center developments from creating windfalls for taxing authorities without prompt relief for taxpayers. It also ensures that substantial new investment is treated in a way that directly lowers the tax burden on existing property owners.
