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Henrico County tax changes will benefit business
April 25, 2017
On April 25, 2017, the Henrico County Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance to ease the business license tax burden for Henrico businesses and a property tax rate reduction designed to attract more data centers to the county.
License Exemption Change Will Help Henrico Business Owners
During the public hearing held on April 25, the Henrico County Board of Supervisors approved a measure to increase the standard deduction from tax basis for business licenses from $100,000 to $200,000. As part of the new deduction amount, businesses earning $200,000 or less would NOT have to pay business license taxes to the County.
According to the County Manager’s office, the increased deduction will mean an additional 1,560 licensed businesses will no longer be required to pay the business license tax, bringing the total number of licensed Henrico businesses that are exempt from paying the tax up to 12,600.
The increased deduction will go into effect beginning with the 2017 tax year.
Henrico Welcomes Data Centers with a Reduced Tax Rate
The Board of Supervisors also approved a separate tax rate that will dramatically reduce the property tax burden for businesses whose primary services are storage, management and processing of digital data.
The move cuts the current business property tax rate for computer and related equipment for data centers from $3.50 per $100 of assessed value to just $0.40 per $100, effectively making the County more attractive to data center businesses interested in locating in the area – businesses like Quality Technology Services (QTS), which has an expansive data center campus in Henrico’s White Oak Technology Park.
“This property tax incentive is great news for our existing data centers and ultimately for new data center projects that choose to capitalize on sites such as White Oak Technology Park, where we offer robust electric, fiber, water and sewer infrastructure,” said Gary McLaren, Henrico County Economic Development Authority Executive Director. “In a nutshell, Henrico County’s value proposition just became much more valuable to the data center sector.”
Jim Reinhart, Chief Operating Officer, QTS, agreed, saying “With reliable, affordable energy, strong connectivity and a skilled workforce, Henrico County is an attractive data center market. QTS applauds Henrico and its leaders, who continue to identify innovative ways to support responsible growth for the County. The proposed tax reduction will make Henrico an increasingly more attractive option for data center providers like QTS to grow and prosper.”
The data center/ digital data storage ordinance will also go into effect beginning with the 2017 tax year.
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