Data centers in Kentucky

Amends KRS 68.200 to define “gross receipts” and to apply the license fee to gross receipts derived from transportation network company services; creates a new section of KRS Chapter 131 to require that the Department of Revenue submit an annual report to the Legislative Research Commission and the Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue pertaining to tax law changes and actions taken by the department; amends KRS 131.010 to define “administrative writings” and “tax form”; amends KRS 131.020 to establish requirements for the Office of Tax Policy and Regulation within the Department of Revenue to publish administrative writings, tax forms, and instructions to the tax forms on its website; amends KRS 131.030, 131.081, 131.130, and 131.131 to conform; amends KRS 131.190 to allow reporting of information by the Department of Revenue; amends KRS 131.400, 131.420, 131.435, 131.440, and 131.445 to require that the Department of Revenue offer a tax amnesty program, to provide various revenue measures for the operation of certain state agencies, to allow the Executive Branch Ethics Commission to increase the registration fee to provide funding for a new online filing system, to require that the Office of the State Budget Director submit reports on tax expenditure recommendations to the Legislative Research Commission and the Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue, and to apply specified provisions to 2023-2024, 2024-2025, and 2025-2026 fiscal years; amends KRS 138.472 to define terms and to allow a bad debt deduction for the motor vehicle rental and ride share excise tax; amends KRS 138.475 and 186.050 to remove hybrid vehicles from the electric vehicle ownership fee; amends KRS 138.510 to redistribute up to $250,000 per fiscal year in historical horse racing pari mutuel tax revenues to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission for the benefit of Thoroughbred, standardbred, and American quarter horse aftercare facilities in Kentucky and up to $250,000 per fiscal year to the Kentucky equine management internship program, to eliminate distributions of the excise tax on historical horse races to the Kentucky Thoroughbred and standardbred breeders incentive funds, to include the Bluegrass Community and Technical College in the distribution of pari mutuel tax revenues that are required to be used for construction, expansion or renovation of facilities or the purchase of equipment for equine programs, and to require the host track to grant the Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet a race title sponsorship and promotional package at multiple day international harness racing event with purses and awards over $5 million; amends KRS 138.513 to make a technical correction; creates a new section of KRS Chapter 139 to allow a sales and use tax exemption for a preliminarily approved company or an approved company; amends KRS 139.470 to increase the sales and use tax de minimis filing threshold to $12,000; amends KRS 139.480 to exempt the sale, use, storage, or consumption of currency and bullion from sales and use tax; amends KRS 140.040 to define “power of appointment” to mean only a general power of appointment; creates a new section of KRS Chapter 141 to allow an income tax credit for the sales and use tax paid on a qualified broadband investment in this state; amends KRS 141.010 to update the Internal Revenue Code reference date to the Internal Revenue Code in effect on December 31, 2023, for income tax purposes; amends KRS 141.020 to further define “GF appropriations” to exclude any appropriation from the budget reserve trust fund account that is supported solely by moneys from the budget reserve trust fund account and specifically identified in the appropriation language as not being a GF appropriation; extends the sunset date to January 1, 2027, in relation to the exclusions from income tax earned by nonresident disaster response employees and disaster response businesses; amends KRS 141.0205 to order the qualified broadband investment tax credit; amends KRS 141.039 to delay the deferred tax deduction until January 1, 2026; amends KRS 141.040 to extend the sunset date to January 1, 2027, in relation to the exclusions from income tax earned by disaster response businesses; amends KRS 143.022 to allow refunds of tax paid on coal transported directly to a market outside of North America until July 1, 2026; creates new sections of Subchapter 20 of KRS Chapter 154 to establish an economic development program for data centers, to define terms, to make declarations and state purposes for the sales and use tax incentive, to provide a process for companies to apply, to prohibit the rehabilitation or replacement of existing data centers, and to require a memorandum of agreement between the Cabinet for Economic Development and an eligible company; amends KRS 154.30-010 to allow modified new revenues for income tax to be used for calendar years 2023 to 2026; amends KRS 186.010 to eliminate the definition of “hybrid vehicle”; amends KRS 186.162 to require the Transportation Cabinet to identify the cost of issuing a child victims’ trust fund special license plate and to require the transfer of revenues received in excess of the cost to the child victims’ trust fund; amends KRS 186.531 to eliminate fees for obtaining certain personal identification cards; amends KRS 224.50-868 to extend the fee currently imposed for each new motor vehicle, trailer, or semitrailer tire sold in Kentucky to July 1, 2026; amends KRS 224.60-130 to extend the date for reimbursements of corrective action projects using moneys in the petroleum storage tank account; amends KRS 224.60-142 to extend the date of registration for owners of petroleum storage tanks containing motor fuels in order to be eligible to participate in the fund and extends the date allowing owners and operators to submit affidavits and applications through July 15, 2031, relevant to current petroleum storage tank accounts; amends KRS 224.60-145 to extend the small operator assistance and small operator tank removal accounts to July 15, 2031; amends KRS 230.400 to require that $100,000 each fiscal year be transferred from the Kentucky Thoroughbred development fund to the Kentucky problem gambling assistance account; amends KRS 230.445 to require that $25,000 each fiscal year be transferred from the Kentucky quarter horse, paint horse, Appaloosa, and Arabian development fund to the Kentucky problem gambling assistance account; amends KRS 230.770 to require that $75,000 each fiscal year be transferred from the Kentucky standardbred development fund to the Kentucky problem gambling assistance account, to require the racing commission to account for all moneys within the standardbred development fund by separating those moneys as required for distribution, to establish an international harness racing event reserve account for a Kentucky track that hosts an international harness racing event spanning several days and distributes at least $5 million in purses and awards, and beginning July 31, 2024, to provide that $300,000 from the standardbred development fund be transferred annually to the international harness racing reserve account until the reserve account reaches $900,000; RETROACTIVE; APPROPRIATION; EMERGENCY; As published by the legislature, found through LegiScan.

Source: the legislature's page (opens in a new tab). Found through LegiScan.

Create new section of KRS 139 which defines various terms relating to commercial mining of cryptocurrency using blockchain technology, provides sales and use tax exemptions on the tangible personal property directly used and the electricity used in commercial mining of cryptocurrency as of the date of approved application, provides for a four year sunset from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2025, and requires the amount of the exemption to be reported by the Department of Revenue beginning on January 1, 2022 and every January 1 thereafter; amend KRS 160.613 to exempt electricity used or consumed in the commercial mining of cryptocurrency; amend KRS 160.6131 to define commercial mining of cryptocurrency and colocation facility; amend KRS 131.190 as a conforming change. EFFECTIVE July 1, 2021 As published by the legislature, found through LegiScan.

Source: the legislature's page (opens in a new tab). Found through LegiScan.

Amend KRS 91.260 and 92.300 to clarify that certain classes of data centers may constitute manufacturing establishments and therefore qualify for temporary exemption from local property taxes as an inducement to their location within an applicable city or urban county, as provided by local ordinance; provide that the amendments made by the Act shall apply prospectively only to new manufacturing establishments. As published by the legislature, found through LegiScan.

Source: the legislature's page (opens in a new tab). Found through LegiScan.

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 96 relating to municipal utilities and KRS Chapter 278 relating to Public Service Commission regulated utilities to: define terms; only allow for the provision of electric service to a data center through a contract that conforms to the requirements of the Act; require that within 90 days of the effective date of the Act, the electric service provider issue or file a tariff setting forth the process for a data center customer to apply for service; require the payment of a nonrefundable service application fee; require the preparation of studies to determine the manner in which the electric service provider can safely and efficiently serve the data center in a way that does not have negative service or rate impacts to their non data center customers; establish the minimum contract requirements between the electric service provider and the data center customer; provide that requirements of the Act that are conflict with the Tennessee Valley Authority's requirements for the distribution of electricity that it supplies shall not apply; prohibit the charging or allocating of any costs associated with serving or constructing new infrastructure to serve a data center to any other customers served by natural gas, water, or wastewater utilities; amend KRS 154.20-229 to require that a qualified data center project that has been preliminarily approved for a certificate of exemption under KRS 139.499 include in its memorandum of agreement with the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority a certification that the data center project complies or will comply with all applicable local requirements and the applicable requirements of the Act. As published by the legislature, found through LegiScan.

Source: the legislature's page (opens in a new tab). Found through LegiScan.

Create a new section of Subchapter 10 of KRS Chapter 224 to define terms; require data centers to submit a water feasibility study to the Energy and Environment Cabinet before commencing operations; require all data centers to submit an annual water usage report to the Energy and Environment Cabinet. As published by the legislature, found through LegiScan.

Source: the legislature's page (opens in a new tab). Found through LegiScan.

Create a new section of Subchapter 10 of KRS Chapter 224 to define "data center"; provide that the requirements of the section only apply to data centers constructed on agricultural land; require a data center owner to file a decommissioning plan with the Energy and Environment Cabinet prior to operating the data center; provide for the minimum requirements of the decommissioning plan, including requiring a surety bond or similar security to guarantee the decommissioning of the data center; amend KRS 154.20-229 to require that a qualified data center project that has been preliminarily approved for a certificate of exemption under KRS 139.499 include in its memorandum of agreement with the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority requirements to engage with local government officials to regularly review and adopt practices to improve energy and water use efficiency. As published by the legislature, found through LegiScan.

Source: the legislature's page (opens in a new tab). Found through LegiScan.

Create a new section of KRS Chapter 61 to define "data center," "nondisclosure or confidentiality agreement," and "public agency"; prohibit public agencies from entering into a nondisclosure or confidentiality agreement relating to a data center that expands confidentiality beyond what is authorized by the Kentucky Revised Statutes; provide that contractual provisions relating to data centers that waive, supersede, or expand the requirements of the Kentucky Open Records Act or Kentucky Open Meetings Act are void; provide that certain information be made publicly available when certain data center related actions are taken or documents are executed; provide that aggregated data concerning projected or actual impacts on public utilities and certain other public areas shall not be deemed confidential solely because the information relates to a data center project; prohibit a nondisclosure or confidentiality agreement from restricting the authority of a local public official to discuss data center impacts or public participation, hearings, or proceedings otherwise require by law. As published by the legislature, found through LegiScan.

Source: the legislature's page (opens in a new tab). Found through LegiScan.

Create a new section of KRS Chapter 278 to define terms; prohibit a retail electric supplier from providing service to a data center customer that has a total aggregated customer contract capacity of greater than 100 megawatts unless the Public Service Commission has approved a tariff or contract for the service that includes certain minimum requirements; exempt a data center customer that has an electric service agreement for more than 100 megawatts of existing load prior to the effective date of the Act; prohibit the commission from approving a tariff unless all capital and operating costs for new infrastructure to serve the data center are assigned to the data center customer and that the costs for shared benefits for the new facilities are allocated proportionally and will not have any greater adverse impact on other customer classes than if the data center had not connected to the system; provide that the Act may be cited as the Kentucky Ratepayer Protection Act. As published by the legislature, found through LegiScan.

Source: the legislature's page (opens in a new tab). Found through LegiScan.