I've been a full-time professional legal writer for over 6 years now and, while I did form an LLC about 2 years ago, the thought of doing so in order to deduct my $5/month Medium fee made me laugh.

First, incorporating costs money. It depends on the corporate structure you take, as well as on the state, but it cost me over $200 to "LLC up." And that was on my own, without a lawyer's help.

Second, lots of people seem to think that deducting business expenses is a big deal. It really isn't. A business deduction just means that you pay for the business expense with pre-tax money, rather than post tax money. While it's important to deduct every $5 you can, it's not like you're saving all five of those dollars. It's more like $0.80 (depending on the tax bracket).

Add points one and two, and you see why I chuckled at the idea of LLCing solely for deducting my Medium fees. It would take years to recover the incorporation fees.

However, incorporating in some way - rather than writing as a sole proprietor (which you automatically do, if you *haven't* incorporated, somehow) - does have one significant benefit: Limited liability. This is huge if you write something and then you get sued. If you're a sole proprietor and you get sued for your writing, everything you own is on the line. If you're incorporated, everything *your business* owns is on the line.

This matters for writing on Medium, especially if you cover things like politics or the news where other people can claim you're defaming them. It also matters for copyright infringement claims (yes, I'm talking about every photo you use).