My 4 Cents Worth.....Splitting income with your spouse is one thing, paying them a consulting fee is quite another and the two are unrelated. For appearance sake if nothing else, management should not hire family.
I don't believe we are at the "gate" yet. Not even certain whether we can see it yet. For the past several years Erin has been climbing a mountain - Mount Everest. We're about 1/2 way up - trouble is, the last part of the climb is the hardest and that's where most "climbers" perish.
Changing out the climbing group is not really an option, but hiring a helicopter to take them the rest of the way up the mountain just might be possible. 1st thing that needs to be done is getting the climbing group thinking about helicopters. Tough to do when all they've been thinking about is where next to place their feet during the climb.
Possibly we can help. Even now, after reading some of the comments here, they may be starting to think about helicopters. Let's add more fuel to that fire.