Tax breaks on the fast track at the statehouse would help Iowa try to lure another well-known name in the computer business to expand in the state. Microsoft is planning to build a giant "server farm" to power Internet searches and Representative Phil Wise, a Democrat from Keokuk, says the company is considering two states its new facility.

 "And Iowa can be one of the two if we move this legislation forward quickly," Wise says. The House Ways and Means Committee unanimously approved the bill yesterday (Monday). It would forgive sales, use, and property taxes on Microsoft’s computers and the electricity it would take to run them. Similar tax breaks were extended last year to Google for a similar facility in Council Bluffs.

"I would love to have those investments made in Iowa rather than in another state," Wise says. "For those of you from Pottawattamie County, you know the benefits of a $600 million investment in your locality. We’d like to share that with another area of the state."

To get the tax breaks intended now for Microsoft, the bill requires an investment of at least 200 million dollars and land for the facility must be purchased or leased in Iowa by the end of this year.