Virginia governor Bob McDonnell signed three pieces of tax legislation into law on Monday, one of them extending tax breaks data center operators in the state have been enjoying to data center tenants.

All three new laws were written to support growth of the state’s high-tech industry. The two non-data-center-related laws enacted by the governor were extensions of temporary tax-break rules for high-tech put in place in the past.

Bobbie Kilberg, president and CEO of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, a trade association of the region’s technology community, said the three bills would make the state more competitive for “good-paying” jobs in the vibrant and growing tech industry.

“This legislation sends the right signal to the community of high-tech firms and entrepreneurs in Virginia, as well as those in other states and around the world,” she said.

One of the new bills signed into law Monday extends a 2010 exemption from capital-gains tax on investors in technology startups. The law exempts such an investor from paying 100% of their capital-gains tax for three years.

The third bill was an extension of a 2011 tax credit on costs associated with building or expanding a telework program – a program to have a company’s employees work from home, also called “telecommuting.”

Virginia, especially Northern Virginia, is a hotbed for data centers. All major US players have facilities there, serving customers in neighboring Washington, D.C., including, but not at all limited to the federal government. Major players in the region include wholesalers DuPont Fabros, Digital Realty Trust and CoreSite, retail-colocation providers Equinix, Telx and Latisys, and companies with a wide range of data center services such as Terremark, Rackspace and Savvis.