Headshot of Bill Hutton

Bill Hutton

Emeritus Honorable Raymond Sullivan Professor of Law

Bio

Had Professor Hutton continued his military career, which he abandoned in 1957 after a tour of duty in Panama, he would have attained retirement in 1975. Instead he lingers on at UC Law SF, teaching tax classes and obscure seminars, comfortable in the knowledge that the Internal Revenue Code will outlast him.

A native of Detroit and a beneficiary of its then-excellent public schools, Hutton pursued a meandering post-military educational path — Dartmouth for skiing and philosophy, Michigan for golf and law, and NYU for the West Village and tax. His extended New York period featured an entirely unremarkable Wall Street apprenticeship, a dozen years in the cocoon of the academy (NYU), and the contagion of the Catskills fly fishing virus, from which he would never recover.

At UC Law SF since 1980, Hutton edits The Back Forty, consorts with environmentalists of the land-trust persuasion, and serves as a director of several habitually under funded nonprofit organizations located in places like Santa Fe. Summer — the principal justification of his teaching career — finds him in one of the last best places, Montana, despite the recent quantification of its formerly “reasonable and prudent” speed limit.

Scholarship

 

Books


The Back Forty Anthology: Selected Articles From the Newsletter of Land Conservation Law (Hyperion Society 2d ed. 2003) (editor-in-chief).

The Back Forty Anthology: Selected Articles From the Newsletter of Land Conservation Law (Hyperion Society 1995) (editor-in-chief, with student editors Lisa Burkdall & Audra Mai).

Charitable Giving After ERTA (California Continuing Education of the Bar 1982) (with Bruce S. Ross).

Exempt Organizations: Tax Strategies and Legal Problems (Practising Law Institute 1982) (with Stephen Schwarz).

A Special Tax Program for Non Specialists (Continuing Legal Education in Colorado 1981).

Tax Strategies for Personal Investment Programs (Program of Advanced Professional Development 1981).

Problems in the Acquisition, Management and Disposition of Investment Real Properties: Problems, Cases and Materials for a Short Course (St. Louis University School of Law 1980) (with William Natbony & Henry Ordower).

Major Tax Aspects of Real Estate Transactions (Washington Law School Foundation 1979).

Journal Articles


Conservation for Tax Dollars: The New §2031(c) Exclusion, 19 Est. Plan. & Calif. Prob. Rep. 68 (1997).

Primer #4: Understanding and Illustrating Tax Benefits, 5 Back Forty [insert] (May/June 1995). FULLTEXT

Tax Policy: The Chafee Bill- Trick or Treat?, 5 Back Forty (Sept/Oct 1995). FULLTEXT

Below-Market Interest on Loans and Installment Sales: Tax Consequences, 4 Back Forty 1 (Mar./Apr. 1994). FULLTEXT

The Inurement Rule and Ownership of Copyrights, 9 Exempt Org. Tax Rev. 813 (1994) (with Cynthia R. Rowland). URL

Of Blimps and Appraisals and Judicial Grace, 4 Back Forty 13 (Nov./Dec. 1993). FULLTEXT

Tax-Deferral Transactions: Installment Sales, Like-Kind Exchanges and Involuntary Conversion, 4 Back Forty 1 (Nov./Dec. 1993). FULLTEXT

Agricultural Preservation: Protesting the Application of Revenue Ruling 78-384, 3 Back Forty 12 (Sept./Oct. 1992). FULLTEXT

Introduction to the Problems of Acquiring Properties from Partnerships, Corporations, Estates, and Trusts, 3 Back Forty 1 (Nov./Dec. 1992). FULLTEXT

McLennan I: Does the Government Have an Attitude Problem?, 2 Back Forty 7 (Sept. 1991). FULLTEXT

Easements in the Wake of Catastrophe: The Legal Fallout, 1 Back Forty 1 (Apr. 1991) (with Walter T. Moore). FULLTEXT

Fundraising (and Maybe Acquisition Planning) with Charitable Remainder Trusts, 2 Back Forty 1 (Oct. 1991). FULLTEXT

Of Unrequited Deductions (and Lost Hopes), 2 Back Forty 8 (Sept. 1991). FULLTEXT

Primer #1: Bargain Sales, 1 Back Forty [insert] (Feb. 1991). FULLTEXT

Primer #2: Options, 2 Back Forty [insert] (May/June 1991). FULLTEXT

Primer #3: Donations of Appreciated Property—Income Tax Consequences, 2 Back Forty [insert] (Sept. 1991). FULLTEXT

The Forte Decision—Another Perspective, 1 Back Forty 10 (Mar. 1991).

Charitable Contribution Planning: Perils and Precautions, 1 Back Forty 1 (May 1990). FULLTEXT

Extinguishment of Easements: Division of Proceeds Clauses, 1 Back Forty 5 (June 1990). FULLTEXT

Mathematical Prescriptions for Relief of the Public Charity Status Blues, 1 Back Forty 1 (Oct. 1990). FULLTEXT

Of Easements, Appraisers, and “Fundamental” Errors, 1 Back Forty 5 (July/Aug. 1990).

The Withdrawing Partner: Sale versus Liquidation, 48 Inst. Fed. Tax. 27.1 (1990).

Unrequited Gifts: The Tax Fallout, 1 Back Forty 6 (Oct. 1990). FULLTEXT

Real Estate Tax Planning: An Oxymoron Whose Time Has Come?, 264 PLI/Tax 401 (1987).

Recent Developments in Tax-Exempt Organizations, 18 U.S.F. L. Rev. 649 (1984) (with Stephen Schwartz). FULLTEXT

Holiday Special: The Repackaging of Real Estate, 1 W. Tax 1 (Dec. 1982).

On Aging Collapsible Properties, 6 J. Corp. Tax’n 357 (1980).

Partial Liquidations and Corporate Shareholders, 6 J. Corp. Tax’n 359 (1980).

The Uris Case—More Fun with E&P, 6 J. Corp. Tax’n 354 (1980).

The Consenting Ex-Shareholder—Can He Manage?, 6 J. Corp. Tax’n 361 (1980).

Courses

  • Federal Income Taxation
  • Federal Income Taxation of Corporations and Partnerships
  • Business Planning Seminar
  • Non Profit Organizations
  • Federal Income Taxation & Real Estate
  • Land Trust Seminar