I do not know how effective this will be
Bester.
First, is this a matter of tax fraud or accounting fraud (e.g., embezzlement)? Your main description does not allege that Obsidian is dodging taxes or paying less in taxes (if anything, paying more taxes), but rather that friends and family are holding sham positions and being paid. This could be a crime (I have further questions about it in point #2), just perhaps not one that involves the IRS. Instead, this may fall under the review of state authorities that investigate accounting fraud/embezzlement.
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You are more than welcome to file this, it is your choice. I just do not see much coming from it. If anything, this would be a State of California matter.
I haven't read all the posts since the last time I was on, but if this ghost employee practice is indeed illegal (which wasn't mentioned whenever it actually happened), I'd be curious to know.
If so,
Bester, I do appreciate what you did, plus making me aware of that as an issue. If there's a step-by-step process anyone knows on how to file these complaints, I'd love to hear them.
On a related note to this issue, this wasn't the only family members who Feargus attempted to bring on. Feargus did try and have both his young children added as employees at the studio during my last year there, but the other owners fought back and made it clear that (1) not only was it illegal b/c of the age requirements, (2) there was no way to defend against someone being able to prove his two children didn't work there (obviously, Feargus's children are far below age of employment so if it was somehow proven, there would be additional problems), but most importantly, on a higher level, it was seen an unethical and wrong thing to try and do.
The conversations about this were difficult because it was an issue related to employment + family, which made an otherwise easy decision of "no" increasingly angry and complicated, which was frustrating. It was something that shouldn't have been suggested, discussed, or brought up at all.
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