City leaders in Manassas are expressing bewilderment after learning a tenant inside a new data center won’t have to pay business personal property taxes, drastically shrinking the revenue the city expected from the property.
The tenant inside the Brickyard data center at 9905 Godwin Drive, operated by Digital Realty Trust, filed tax paperwork on April 14 identifying itself as a bank, Commissioner of the Revenue Tim Demeria told City Council April 30.
Under Virginia code, banks are exempt from local Business, Professional and Occupational License, or BPOL, taxes, meaning the city will not benefit from the computer personal property tax revenue data centers typically provide. This includes anticipated tax revenues from servers, networking equipment and computer peripherals…