Read as, spend all of your energy finding income-generating projects at this point. You're safe as you won't run into any tax issues down the road you forgot to prepare for.
small business development center <<state name>>
You don't pay "15.3% more taxes". 15.3ish percent from income is taxed for FICA (social security, etc). You pay roughly half of that 7.x% in traditional employment situations, and the employer pays the other half. Someone making $100k is actually costing the employer $107.6k (roughly).
As a sole prop you pay both halves of this tax - that's where the 15.3% comes from. However, you deduct half of it when computing the rest of your income taxes.
Long and short - talk to a tax person about how you this is handled. It's not hard, but taking an hour or so to get your head around it is advisable.
As to scorp/llc/ccorp, etc... Two points. One, for a single person there likely won't be any major diff between scorp or llc except more paperwork as an scorp. You can elect to be taxed as an scorp while retaining LLC status, but I don't know many who do that. Also, the arguable tax advantages of scorps are likely being reduced or eliminated soon via impending legislation in the US, so don't choose that for tax reasons. There may be some other reasons re: shareholders and such, but you can always 'trade up' to a larger corp at some point if you need to.
I do some work with agencies who can get work with me as a sole prop, but if I work under the LLC name, they have to go through a full public bidding process, which a) takes longer, b) increases the chance I might not get the work and c) generally adds more cost to the project all around. So, even though I have an LLC, I still do some work 'outside' of that structure, depending on the situation.
with any other election other than a S-Corp all income is subject to the full tax so yes you are responsible for that tax on the full amount of your income. With an S election you are allowed to pay yourself a reasonable salary that is subject to the employment tax while shielding the rest as profit dividend which unlike a C corp are pass through and not subject to corporate taxes. so the taxes on that portion is (0%) so yes if you elect to file any thing other than an S-Corp then you are paying 15.3% on income you would be paying 0% so it is not 7.x% it is 15.3% that you are loosing.
Also, the arguable tax advantages of s-corps are likely being reduced or eliminated soon via impending legislation in the US, so don't choose that for tax reasons.
That is the worst advice that I have ever heard. The legislation has not been passes and their are a million reasons that a bill can get killed. Making recommendations on speculative future events is irresponsible at best and the fact of the matter is if the poster files an S-Corp and the bill passes then they are in the same place as an LLC for the most part. If it does not pass, they have cost themselves a good deal of money on a inferior election.
I was literally just in my accountants office yesterday discussing this subject for a new venture and he assuredly recommended a S-election.
The majority of people I know haven't seen that much of a tax difference one way or another when freelancing as individuals whether scorp or llc precisely because of the 'reasonable salary' requirement. If you manage to pull in $200k freelancing, but only salary $30k to yourself, yes, you're 'shielding' over $150k from self-employment tax, but that's a pretty big red flag which may trigger an audit.
"If it does not pass, they have cost themselves a good deal of money on a inferior election." There's nothing to stop you from changing your corp status or starting a new one if you get to the point where one structure makes more financial sense than another. The original poster's question was to do with freelancing first and later developing an application. I suspect the freelancing income will likely not rise to the point where there's much of a difference between scorp shieldability vs llc passthrough taxation (arguably, yes, any benefit is better than none).
Another poster's suggestion of starting up another entity specifically for the application development may be the best option all around, but, yet again, consulting a local professional competent in the laws of your locality would be the best bet one could take, regardless of other HN suggestions. While an scorp structure makes the most sense for your situation, it might not for the OP.