The three of us who founded Technically Philly dissolved our partnership at the end of last year. But it was good news.

Moving away from the general partnership we launched in early  2009, we’ve incorporated as an S-Corporation in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, for better protection against liability, losses and for better treatment by the federal government (though, as I understand it, if we were to ever sell this thing, it’s a less desirable designation).

That means we closed a bank account, tossed out our partnership agreement in lieu of an operation agreement and started anew of sorts. In our case, dissolving our partnership coincided with our new, dusted off business plan for Technically Media Inc., our parent publishing consultancy that oversees TP.

I put considerable thought into the organization of our business so as to make this inevitable step forward as painless as possible. For others it might be obvious, but if it isn’t for you, below I share some lessons and the steps we took.

Here are some of those take aways:

• We saw our business in four phases: (1) the starting phase, during which all three of us were doing other things and so it was all sweat equity, though a little money was brought in; (2) the building phase, beginning in June when Sean came on full-time as an independent contractor; (3) the growing phase, beginning Dec. 6, 2010 when I joined Sean on full-time and we made this push to incorporation and coming on as salaried employees of the S-Corp and (4) the next phase, in which whatever next big move has to happen.
• We tracked our hours: Beginning in phase two, knowing we need a metric to divvy up money, even though we weren’t yet sure how, we tracked our hourly outputs on a Google doc. So, when it came time to splitting money, it was a simple case of divvying by proportional hours, and subtracting any money that we had already taken out (like, for example, Sean’s pay).
• Every hour was equal: This was an important decision. All three of us were doing different things and playing slightly different roles and, we realized, some of those roles were simply more directly lucrative to the business than others. Still, none of succeeded if it wasn’t for the other two, so we counted all of our hour outputs the same. No weighting hours or special treatment. As your business grows, this is something that may not always be possible.
• We closed out reimbursements and debt: First things first, square away anything the partnership owes to anyone, including the partners.
• Do the math and make sure everyone agrees: Using our hour breakdown, we divided the money up proportionally and closed out the partnership account.
• Prepare for taxes: Depending on your circumstance, that final partnership disbursement can be seen as taxable 1099 income, so prepare by knocking at least a third of it off the table. If there are any large business expenses that can be made before closing out the partnership that makes sense, do so.
• Invest or other next steps: For the three of us, dissolving the partnership was just to incorporate, so we invested a large portion of the money we had made back into a new account, each of us investing the same total.

I am not going to write about the brief media blitz that surrounded the controversy of the City of Philadelphia enforcing its business privilege license requirement for bloggers.

My good friend and Technically Philly co-founder Sean Blanda already handled well my perspective.

(Quickly, Philadelphia, like many municipal governments, requires a license to do business in its environs. An unnamed amount of bloggers who declared on federal tax documents some form of revenue from their publications were compelled to pay for a $50 yearly or $300 lifetime license, the latter of which both Technically Philly and NEast Philly acquired as we brought on revenue. Philadelphia CityPaper reported that the city had begun reaching directly out to bloggers demanding they pay up, a reality first noted on web forum Philly Speaks and, admittedly, ignored by us at TP, and the whole concept exploded. Soon, far flung media outlets were implying that the city’s license — which is required of anyone doing any kind of business in the 135 square miles of Philadelphia — was for bloggers only. It isn’t. And anyone solicited by the city had advertising or had otherwise declared related income federally. So, considering much of the revenue was limited to tens of dollars, it may have been a foolish chase, but certainly not illegal or unfair.)

Instead, I wanted to share two thoughts on the future of blogging that came out of this controversy.

First, blogs, or any online-only venture, can be business.

There was a time when municipal governments wouldn’t know what the hell a blog was. Or what they did. There was a period of transition when they didn’t care. But that’s all changing.

We at TP are less blog by conventional assertion, but are certainly a blog format, and we’ve interviewed Mayor Michael Nutter and David Cohen, the number two man at Comcast, and investment celebrity Josh Kopelman.

Our coverage is real and, though perhaps meager, so is our revenue. That’s a real change and says something about where blogging has come in less than a decade.

Secondly and perhaps more novel is the mechanism through which people found out this news. I was contacted by no fewer than 12 friends, family members and colleagues about this controversy. Only two — yes, one of five — duplicated the same source.

It helps that this story went a little batty pretty quickly, but I was so taken by the six Gchats, two tweetss, one email, one Facebook post, a couple Google Reader finds and, yes, even a text message. All, aside from a duplicate Gchat, referencing a different source.

1. Two Gchats for the original CityPaper story
2. Gchat about the Philebrity write up
3. Gchat about the Slashdot link
4. Gchat about the Time magazine slice
5. Gchat status about the Guardian story (which quoted Blanda)
6. Tweet about the NBC Philadelphia short
7. Tweet about the Washington Post item
8. Facebook message about the CNN story
9. My Google Reader feeds displayed the Inquirer City Hall blog version
10. My Google Reader feeds offered the Phawker aggregation of the New York Magazine and this blogger
11. Email about the Washington Examiner post
12. Later, I saw a tweet to this Redlasso cut of a Fox 29 clip

So, to recap: blogging has gone beyond mainstream to just straight normal (now pay up) and media is so damn diffuse that it’s easy to rip someone off on their story, get the clicks and be sure that no one has to ever send the same link twice.

The federal tax deadline is barreling toward us. I thought I’d share what little I know and what I’m reading about deducting home expenses for those of us who have done just that this fiscal year.

It’s a great way to keep your home costs down, but, of course, the rules are a bit more involved than they might seem. Some great reading below:

This is all part of the game to reduce your overall taxable income, to keep more of it for yourself.

From Business Opportunities: Basic Rules for deducting a home office

First, you generally need to make sure your home office is used exclusively and regularly for business. The IRS offers the following example: Suppose you’re a lawyer and use your den at home to write legal briefs and prepare clients’ tax returns. Your family also uses the den for recreation. Because the den isn’t used exclusively for your work, you can’t claim the deduction on your tax return. [Source]

From there, it’s all about percentages. What percentage square footage is your office of your entire home or apartment? That’s the percentage you can write off of your monthly mortgage payment or rent. Hint: it’s probably not going to be even a quarter. So, if you pay $800 in rent, that would mean you could only write off $200 monthly.

You can write off percentages of your utilities, too, though, which is a plus. The Internet is something I rely on heavily for work, but your phone and others are opportunities to reduce your taxable income.

From CNN: Three rules for home-office deductions

For instance, you may not deduct the first phone line in your home, even if it’s your only phone line. That’s because the assumption is that your only phone is for personal use. You may, however, deduct the bells-and-whistles you add for business purposes, such as call-waiting. And you may deduct the cost of individual business calls. [Source]

So, thusly, early this year, I had two cell phones, one I kept for personal use, so I can deduct the purchase of the other phone and all of its related costs month to month. Later during the fiscal year, my contract ended, so I dropped the personal one, leaving me just one. That means, from then on, I can’t deduct all costs, but I can write off the extra cost of the unlimited plan, for which I opted because I spend so much time on the phone doing interviews and speaking to editors.

And then, all the details you’d ever want to know by way of the IRS. Below, watch some more on the topic.

Suppose you’re freelancing, and you want to do things real legal like — with the tax season on your mind.

If only for ease on your taxes, it’s my limited experience and what others have contended that you ought to set up your own business.

It doesn’t come with any liability or branding protection, but a simple sole proprietorship can do you just fine — it has for me for more than a year. As is sometimes the motivation for content here, I was asked enough times by others about what that means and one makes it happen.

To keep track of my income from freelancing, I wanted to funnel all payments I received through a specific bank account for that purpose. To do that, I needed a business. To do that, you work top to bottom.

• First, you file for an Employee Identification Number with the IRS.
• Then, go to your state’s small business administration — you’re not incorporating so the cost is minimal, usually less than $100 — and file your sole proprietorship’s name. In many states, if your business name is nothing more than your name and one or three descriptive words — i.e. Christopher Wink Writing, Editing and Multimedia or Steve Pisauro Pluming and Heating — you don’t need to file (and pay to file) a fictitious name.
• Finally check with your local government to see if there are any county or municipal expenses — Philadelphia, for example, requires a business privilege license. See the steps to file a business in Philly.

With all that done, you get yourself a small business checking account, and try to stuff it.