It's fraud. He is defrauding the tax authorities, because he is taking her salary as a tax deduction--a deductible business expense--when in fact she's not working and its a business expense. He's also defrauding the health insurer, since he's buying insurance for her to which she is not entitled. (If he had any business partners or investors and they're not fully onboard with this, he's also defrauding them as well.) He and she both could face significant liability for  this.There are ways to do something similar legally; for example, he could offer  her a job (with benefits) as a way to pay or partially pay her alimony; she could accept it; and they could have an agreement setting each one's rights to protect them both. Then as long as she actually is employed by the practice--in such a way that the salary she gets is more or less commensurate wiith the work she actually does--that would be legal. He could also hire her to do freelance work (e.g. marketing, customer service, sales, etc.) as a way to satisfy some or all alimony, and again, as long as its mutually agreed to and above  board, that's fine. It's doing things on the sly without having her actually work that creates liablity.