By Alabama Public Radio
Washington, D.C. – Although Hurricane Ivan devastated Alabama forests, there may have been a benefit for timber owners. U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions used the destruction to persuade Congress to approve a timber industry tax break that he'd been supporting for years. Sessions' provision reverses a 50-year-old discrepancy in the federal tax code. That had allowed land owners who sell their timber in bulk to get better tax treatment than those who sell in smaller quantities. Most timber owners in Alabama do sell in those smaller quantities. Sessions and other supporters at the Alabama Farmers Federation do acknowledge that the tax code improvements in the provision will do little toward compensating farmers for losses from Hurricane Ivan.