Not necessarily unethical, in fact, this is the way that plenty people do this -

I know an old Romanian guy who is a massive real estate mogul and contractor. You'd never know it though because he's typically dressed in whatever old t-shirt he's had for years and years and he kinda looks like an old fisherman.

His financial guy will make a new LLC For him every time that he does a new project and his travel, vehicle, food while working or on the road, etc is an expense that he documents. He is paid on a 1099 out of the business and it's always such a small amount that he never owes any taxes. When the project is done, the LLC is shut down, and it's rinse and repeat.

Now, here's what I, personally, don't know yet - how his financial guy shifts the rest of the profit from a project so that it stays with our humble wealthy mogul.

I'm not making this up, they have a system that's totally by the books, follows the letter of the law to the T, and he doesn't have to pay a dime in taxes, which's what you are asking about.

Let me state that again, but just simply - form a business, document everything carefully, get a professional financial advisor involved, expense any and every work related thing, only pay yourself a modest amount as a 1099 contractor (or whatever your financial advisor recommends), and, as long as you have enough expenses to offset your income, you won't owe taxes.

Maybe one day I ask him the last piece of the puzzle about where the rest of the money goes. Maybe it's some sort of contract payment to another LLC of his or some other such shift.

But this is how many people don't owe taxes but do bring in decent income.

Definitely get professional help though, you don't want to give anyone an excuse to audit you and find out that you have no clue what you're doing with bookkeeping or taxes (unless you do).