Tax department analysts told the Tax Reform and Relief Advisory Committee that available fiscal reports show increasing claim volumes for qualified data-center exemptions and growing biologic-manufacturing claims, while the fertilizer/chemical processing and coal-as-feedstock exemptions have produced no claims to date.

Shaylyn Heeb, a revenue analyst with the tax department, presented statutory reports claim data for reporting years 2022through 2024 (tax years vary by report). Heeb said combined owner-and-tenant reports for qualified data centers showed reported tax-exempt amounts of $19.3 million for tax years 2021and 2022 combined, $18.3 million for tax year 2022, and a large increase to $370.8 million reported for tax year 2024 (report year 2025). The department also reported job counts tied to data-center claims: 61 reported jobs in earlier periods and 115 reported jobs in the most recent year.

Heeb and Tax Commissioner Brian Krashenis cautioned that biologic-manufacturing reporting involves relatively few claimants. Commissioner Krashenis explained that statutory confidentiality protections and internal policies limit the department's ability to disclose detailed claimant-level information when the number of claimants is small, because disclosure could identify taxpayers.

On biologic-manufacturing exemptions, Heeb provided aggregate statewide figures: the department reported sales- and use-tax liability exempted of approximately $1.8 million in 2023 and $4.4 million in 2024 for the biologics exemption claimants who filed reports. The department also presented gross payroll and withholding figures for the sample recipients, but noted those payroll numbers may include multistate payroll and cannot be apportioned from the report forms without further work.

For the fertilizer/chemical processing facility exemption and the coal-processing exemption (coal as feedstock), the department reported no claims to date. Tax Commissioner Krashenis said the absence of claims for those exemptions may be a planning or project-timing issue rather than a policy failure; he recommended the committee explore why projects have not used the exemption and whether statutory or administrative barriers are a factor.

Commissioner Krashenis and staff discussed legislative efforts to increase the commissioner's disclosure authority. Members recalled a 2025 legislative action (Senate Bill 2038 as referenced in committee memos) that added exemptions to a provision authorizing the tax commissioner to disclose incentive information to legislative chairmen on request. Krashenis said the new authority applies to 2025 calendar-year incentive activity and that more detailed, required reports for some incentives will be available after statutory reporting deadlines (for example, April 2026 for certain 2025 activity).

Committee members asked for additional breakdowns and for state-only payroll figures rather than multistate totals; the tax department said it would research what additional nonconfidential detail it can provide and return with refined data at a later meeting.

The department also noted inconsistent reporting of locally provided incentives; statutory forms require disclosure of local incentives provided to claimants, but claimants had not consistently reported local incentives on the statewide forms, complicating the committee's ability to estimate full public subsidy stacks for projects.

Members encouraged the tax department to work with Legislative Council staff and the Department of Commerce to compile nonidentifying aggregate data the committee can use for policy analysis and to identify data gaps that the committee might address by statute or by directing agency reporting.