- Assessment base
- The value on which property tax is computed, divided into real property (land, building, fixtures) and personal property (machinery and equipment); for data centers the personal property can be the majority, so which base an incentive touches determines its worth.
- Bonds-for-title
- A structure in which a development authority takes title to a project financed by revenue bonds the company itself buys, lifting the property off the tax roll and leasing it back under a PILOT, with the company repurchasing title for a nominal sum at term's end.
- Business personal property
- Movable, non-fixture assets such as servers, storage, networking gear, and mechanical equipment; states vary widely in whether and how they tax it, making its treatment a decisive siting variable.
- Clawback (recapture)
- A contract provision requiring repayment or forfeiture of incentive benefits if the company fails to meet its investment, job, or wage commitments; its structure (pro rata versus all-or-nothing, cure periods) largely determines the real risk of an incentive package.
- Depreciation floor (percent-good residual)
- A minimum value below which a personal-property depreciation schedule will not decline, so aging equipment keeps a taxable value indefinitely even after it is functionally obsolete.
- PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes)
- A negotiated contractual payment substituted for property tax, usually enabled by transferring title to a tax-exempt public authority; because the property is legally exempt rather than assessed, the payment can follow bases (fixed-dollar, per-megawatt, escalating) unavailable in the ordinary tax system.
- Sales-and-use tax exemption
- Relief from the one-time tax on equipment purchases, with the 'use' half preventing avoidance by out-of-state buying; typically granted by certification and, when it covers refresh purchases, often a data center's most valuable single incentive.
- Tax increment financing (TIF)
- A tool that freezes a district's assessed value as a base, lets taxes on the base flow to ordinary jurisdictions, and diverts taxes on the growth (the increment) to fund public infrastructure or repay bonds for a fixed term.