They do have an involvement, they want to intentionally redirecting paying customers, to cause their business to be unable to pay its bills, so they can file bankrupt. Here is an excerpt on fraud...
I disagree...it appears that they need to file bankruptcy no matter what...and since I do a lot of tax returns for mom and pop landscaping services I have a pretty good handle on how they work.
Customers are not "assets" unless there are contracts for long term service, and even then they are only assets if the contracts can be sold for any reasonable amount of money or would cause the business to be able to be sold for a reasonable amount of money. It would be a reasonable assumption that their son works for them and that either the business will go under due to the bankruptcy or will no longer be able to employ their son.
Any potential buyer with any sense at all would not agree to buy a landscaping company that was on the verge of bankruptcy, they would only agree to buy the assets of the company and they would only pay what they were truly worth. Landscaping companies do not have much in the way of bricks and mortar assets, and contracts would be worth only a tiny fraction of their value as the buyers would still need to make a profit on fullfilling the contracts, or profits on whatever customers they can retain if there are no contracts. Mom and pop landscaping companies wouldn't own big equipment, they would lease it as needed.
Contracts for landscaping services are rarely for more than one season, and no sensible customer of a landscaping service would automatically agree to renew with someone who purchased the business from a bankruptcy trustee...they would shop around.
It also is not likely that they could continue to pay their bills if they kept all of their customers, or they wouldn't need to file bankrupcy.
If they told their customers that they were going out of business but recommended that they employ their son for the customers he currently handles is hardly fraud.
For all these reasons there would be little opportunity here for fraud. Now, if they were telling all their customers to employ their son's new business,
and the had any significant bricks and mortar assets and transferred those to their son at significantly less than fair market value,
and retained "control" of the business their son owned, THAT would be fraud.
But for the son to strike out on his own, even with the blessing of his parents, would not be fraud.