From: The
United States Department of Commercial Investigations
To: Person or
persons known only by the name of “Santa Claus” AKA “Saint Nick”
Subject:
Failure to conform to certain required regulatory business
practices
Dear Mr. Claus:
It has come to
our attention that you may be operating a business in an unsafe
and or illegal manner. We have received several complaints
regarding your apparent disregard for a number of legislatively
mandated business rules and regulations. Your continued failure
to comply with all state and federal laws may subject you to
heavy fines and or criminal actions. We are issuing this letter
to you in the hopes that you will correct these oversights and
come into compliance as quickly as possible to avoid any further
corrective action.
The complaints,
which require your immediate action, are as follows:
-
Business entity- as of this date we find no record of your
being authorized to conduct
any
business either as a partnership or any form of a
corporation. If you are a corporation, please send us a copy
of your articles of incorporation for each state in which you
conduct business. If you are a charity or a non-profit
organization, please submit your IRS charter classifying you
as such. List each stockholder and corporate officers and the
amount of their share holdings as well. We also do not have a
complete address for your operations other than someplace
called only the “North Pole.” We have sent numerous letters to
you at this address, both regular mail and certified mail. We
have yet to have any returned to us as “addressee unknown” but
we still are not certain where your main business office is
located. Our attempts to contact you by telephone or e-mail
have failed, since we cannot find you listed in any directory.
We are also concerned that we do not have your business
operation classified according to federal SIC codes. We have
obtained information that your business consists entirely of
the manufacture and distribution of toys, if this is correct,
then we will need clarification on this matter as well.
-
Taxes/ salaries- we have been unable to locate any tax returns
for you for the past fifty years.
If you are filing returns under an assumed name, please advise
us of this entity so that we might be in a position to review
the same for proper tax revenue and tax credits. We have been
advised that your firm does not collect any revenue, and is
not subject to taxation since you “give” your product away for
free, even if this is true, we must be able to determine the
source of your operating income. We also are concerned over
any wages paid to any employees and whether or not they are
subject to overtime payments and or withholding taxes. We
understand that you employ seasonal workers commonly referred
to as ‘elves’. If these are migrant workers they may still be
subject to workers compensation coverage and minimum wage
payment guidelines. If we decide to perform an inspection we
would most likely wish to see that you have complied with all
of the provisions of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)
to insure that these ‘elves’ are working in a safe and
disability friendly environment.
-
Environmental and transportation issue- our investigation has
initially revealed that your commonly
used
mode of delivery can be described as “eight tiny reindeer”. In
view of the enormous amount of product, which you project to
distribute in only a twenty-four hour time frame, the PETA has
asked us to verify that you are treating your method of
transportation with kindness and consideration. Our inspectors
will certainly be looking for any signs of animal abuse. We
may want to suggest the addition of other modes of delivery
for you upon the conclusion of our inspection. If in fact you
are using live animals for your delivery method, we expect you
to conform to current rules and regulations concerning safety
and emission standards. The photographs of your delivery
vehicles do not appear to contain any seatbelts or braking
devices, much less any lighting systems for nighttime use. If
you can produce evidence to the contrary, we would appreciate
your doing so in your reply.
These are the
three areas for which we need information from you as quickly as
possible. Other areas such as compliance with OSHA, EPA, and FDA
(if you produce any foodstuffs such as candy or cookies) will
follow after we complete our initial investigation. Please
submit your answers to these questions prior to December 25th,
2002 as we will be closed for the Christmas holidays until the
first of the new year.
Your
cooperation in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Lawrence P.
Greedy
Senior
Investigator
USDCI
