Regarding the "You made a million dollars thanks to your hard work" - first, that's misdirection. Don't make the mistake and think that working hard is all that was needed for $1M; many more people work much harder than I do, and make even less. $1 million also requires a non-trivial amount of good fortune. It means I did not get a heart attack, did not get into a car accident, didn't become depressed or burnt out from working too hard, etc. It means I guessed right about where the market was going, and how to reach customers.
Regarding the question of how to handle tax on $1M if I am uncertain about the following years.
First, I can live for 5 years on $100K/year, so 50% tax still leaves a huge amount. My business is little more than me and a few computers, plus conference and customer travel.
Second, quoting http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-llcs-are-taxed-29... :
> If you will regularly need to keep a substantial amount of profits in your LLC (called "retained earnings"), you might benefit from electing corporate taxation. Any LLC can choose to be treated like a corporation for tax purposes by filing IRS Form 8832, Entity Classification Election, and checking the corporate tax treatment box on the form.
Third, I would look into setting up a Delaware C Corp.
What's wrong with any of these three options?