# What is a PILOT? The tax deal you've never voted on > Sometimes a billion-dollar facility never shows up on the tax rolls at all — because on paper, a public board owns it. Instead of a tax bill, the company writes negotiated checks. That's a PILOT, and central Louisiana is about to hear the term a lot. **By:** Bentley Hensel **Published:** 2026-07-22 **Updated:** 2026-07-22 **Canonical:** https://kingfish.la/what-is-a-pilot/ **License:** CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) **Cite as:** Bentley Hensel (2026). What is a PILOT? The tax deal you've never voted on. Kingfish. https://kingfish.la/what-is-a-pilot/ --- If [ITEP](https://kingfish.la/what-is-itep/) is Louisiana's famous tax break — the one with a state database, a fixed percentage, and decades of public argument — the **PILOT** is its quieter cousin. Fewer rules. Less paperwork in public view. And, done a certain way, a bigger break than ITEP could ever grant. PILOT stands for **Payment In Lieu Of Taxes.** The name says it plainly: instead of paying property taxes the normal way, a company pays a negotiated amount — sometimes more than nothing, usually less than the full bill — under a contract with a local public body. ## The short version - In a typical Louisiana PILOT, a public **industrial development board** takes legal title to the project property and leases it back to the company. - Because government-owned property is **exempt from property taxes**, the normal tax bill disappears. The company's negotiated payments replace it. - Unlike ITEP, there's **no fixed percentage and no standard term.** Everything — amount, schedule, escalation, duration — is whatever the parties agree to. - PILOTs are legal, common, and sometimes genuinely good deals for a community. They are also negotiated, which means the public's protection is entirely in **who negotiated, what they got, and whether anyone can see the paperwork.** ## How the structure works Louisiana law — the industrial development board statutes, [La. R.S. 51:1151](https://legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=103920&ref=kingfish.la) and following — lets parishes and municipalities create nonprofit public corporations whose whole purpose is financing industrial projects. Here's the standard play, step by step: 1. The company and the industrial development board (IDB) strike a deal, often alongside a bond issue the board sponsors. 2. The IDB **takes title** to the land, buildings, or equipment. The company leases it all back and operates exactly as it would have anyway. 3. Because the property is now publicly owned, it comes **off the tax rolls** — not 80 percent off, like ITEP's current cap. All the way off. 4. The company makes the agreed **PILOT payments**, which are divided among local bodies according to the deal. 5. At the end of the term, title typically returns to the company and the property rejoins the rolls — depending, as always, on what the contract says. When bonds are involved, the deal generally needs sign-off from the [State Bond Commission](https://www.treasury.la.gov/?ref=kingfish.la), whose monthly agendas are public and are one of the best early-warning systems for PILOT deals anywhere in the state. ## PILOT vs. ITEP, side by side **ITEP** **PILOT** Who grants it State Board of Commerce & Industry + governor, with a parish board hearing Local industrial development board and parish bodies How much Fixed by rule: up to 80% off, up to 10 years Whatever's negotiated — can exceed or undercut ITEP How long 5 years + 5-year renewal Any term the contract sets — can run decades Where to find it State's [FastLane database](https://fastlaneng.louisianaeconomicdevelopment.com/?ref=kingfish.la) Local minutes, lease agreements, Bond Commission agendas Public's role Parish board public hearing required Whatever local process the bodies choose to hold The practical difference: ITEP is a **program** with statewide rules you can look up. A PILOT is a **contract**, and every one is different. That cuts both ways. A well-negotiated PILOT can deliver a community-guaranteed payment on day one — something ITEP's exemption never does. A badly negotiated one can quietly give away more than ITEP ever could, for longer, with fewer people noticing. ## Why this matters in central Louisiana right now Two live projects put PILOTs on the local map. First, the Applied Digital data center project near Boyce — the $3.6 billion Delta Forge campus — is taking the PILOT route rather than ITEP. Its deal runs through the [England Authority](https://kingfish.la/what-is-the-england-authority/), which, in February 2026, [created a special subdistrict](https://www.kalb.com/2026/03/02/land-near-boyce-designated-possibly-transformational-industrial-project/?ref=kingfish.la) around the 672-acre site that Applied Digital had bought that December. Under an early term sheet, the company's payments _fall_ over time — starting near $27.4 million and dropping to about $19.4 million by year 25, [KALB found in a review of the documents](https://www.kalb.com/2026/06/25/fact-check-what-early-documents-confirm-about-applied-digitals-data-center-coming-rapides-parish/?ref=kingfish.la). A declining schedule on a growing facility is exactly the kind of thing the checklist below is built to catch. Second, the proposed [Sunstripe Solar project](https://kingfish.la/about-sunstripe-solar/) — 10,356 acres near Hineston — hasn't declared its intentions. But the Rapides Parish Police Jury anticipated the question: Section 26-13 of the parish's [Solar Farm Ordinance](https://kingfish.la/agencies/rapides-parish-police-jury/meetings/2025-06-01/) reserves the jury's right to accept, reject, or modify any ITEP request — and then states, in the same breath, that the ordinance "does not limit the use of a PILOT." The door is open. As of mid-July, no ITEP filing for the project appears in the [state database](https://fastlaneng.louisianaeconomicdevelopment.com/public/search/bi?ref=kingfish.la), which makes the PILOT question a live one. ## The questions to ask about any PILOT When a PILOT lands on a local agenda — and one eventually will — these are the questions that separate a good deal from an expensive one. We'll be asking them; you can too. - **What would full taxes have been?** A PILOT can only be judged against the counterfactual. Demand the assessor's math, not the company's. - **Who negotiated, and who was in the room?** Was the school board at the table, or just informed afterward? - **How is the money split** among the parish, schools, sheriff, and fire districts — and does the split match what their millages would have collected? - **Does the payment escalate** with inflation or assessed value, or is Year 25's check the same as Year 1's? - **What are the clawbacks** if the company underbuilds, sells, or leaves early? - **Who audits the payments**, and where does the agreement itself get filed so the public can read it? ## Where to find PILOTs before they're done deals PILOTs rarely announce themselves. They surface in: industrial development board and police jury **agendas and minutes** (Kingfish archives Rapides Parish's [here](https://kingfish.la/agencies/rapides-parish-police-jury/)); [State Bond Commission](https://www.treasury.la.gov/?ref=kingfish.la) monthly agendas; and the **conveyance records** at the clerk of court, where the title transfers and leases that make the structure work have to be recorded. If you see a public board suddenly "acquiring" an industrial property, it will never operate — that's usually not a purchase. That's a PILOT being born. --- ## Citation formats ### BibTeX ```bibtex @misc{kingfish-what-is-a-pilot, author = {Bentley Hensel}, title = {What is a PILOT? The tax deal you've never voted on}, year = {2026}, publisher = {The Kingfish Project}, howpublished = {\url{https://kingfish.la/what-is-a-pilot/}}, note = {Accessed: July 31, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0} } ``` ### CSL-JSON ```json [ { "id": "kingfish-what-is-a-pilot", "type": "article", "title": "What is a PILOT? The tax deal you've never voted on", "author": [ { "literal": "Bentley Hensel" } ], "issued": { "date-parts": [ [ 2026 ] ] }, "publisher": "The Kingfish Project", "URL": "https://kingfish.la/what-is-a-pilot/", "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" } ] ```