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The State of Oregon’s central revenue agency is changing a definition in its tax-assessment rules in response to a complaint from Facebook, Google and other data center owners in the state, who thought they were in danger of having to pay higher taxes than they had anticipated.

Before the state legislature had a chance to act, the Department of Revenue excluded companies like Facebook from being defined as providers of data-transmission services.

Derrick Gasperini, the department’s spokesman, said the change will exempt both Facebook and Google from being centrally assessed by the state. This will make sure that the tax-breaks counties that host their data centers promised them will stay in effect.

“As their business services are now, they will not be centrally assessed,” Gasperini said, adding that if one of these companies were to add Internet-connectivity services in the future, it would open itself up to the possibility of being centrally assessed.

Google has plans in the works to build experimental broadband networks to provide Internet connectivity to the home in communities around the US. If one or more of these communities happens to be in Oregon and happens to be served out of the company’s data center in The Dalles, Google may potentially loose its privilege to be locally assessed.

The Department of Revenue’s property-value assessment overrides a local assessment – which means value of the company’s intangible property can be added to the assessment – if the company is considered a utility. Under its current rules, one of the things that make a company a utility is providing data transmission services.

One of the major reasons Facebook decided to build its massive data center in Prineville, Oregon, was a promise from county officials that it would receive a tax break for locating the facility in a special economic-development zone.

When the company learned that a central property assessment could make its Enterprise Zone agreement irrelevant, it protested publicly, bringing onboard Google, Rackspace, Adobe and others.

In response, a state representative, Republican Mike McLane, introduced a bill that would protect companies in Enterprise Zones from central assessment. Last week, McLane announced that more than half of the legislature supported his bill.

The Department of Revenue, part of the executive branch, decided not to wait until the bill goes through the legislative process. Gasperini said the department would file for a temporary change to the rules on Monday or Tuesday. The change would go into effect as soon as the paperwork is filed.

Once the temporary rule is in effect, the department plans to go through the process to make the change permanent, Gasperini said. The process normally takes between 30 and 90 days.