Assembly Bill 228 proposes to amend the current tax incremental financing (TIF) regulations in Wisconsin by creating a new provision specifically for tax incremental districts (TIDs) that contain qualified data centers. Under existing law, the total equalized value of taxable property in a new or amended TID, combined with the value increment of all existing TIDs, cannot exceed 12 percent of the total equalized value of taxable property in the city or village. However, this bill stipulates that the 12 percent limit will not apply to TIDs that include a qualified data center, provided that all project costs associated with the TID are related to that data center.

The bill introduces new legal language under section 66.1105 (17) (c), defining a "data center" as a qualified data center certified by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) and establishing that a "data center district" is a TID containing such a center. It specifies that if all project costs are related to the data center, the 12 percent limit does not apply to the creation or amendment of the TID. Additionally, any project plan for a data center district that is exempt from the 12 percent findings requirement cannot be amended to include unrelated project costs, and calculations for TIDs must exclude the value increment of any data center district that has been exempted from the 12 percent rule.