When someone reports $200k as business income, I doubt the $36k for "assistant" seems suspicious. You see personal assistants with influencers and movie/music folks. What we don't know is, if the assistant is working only for this one person (would lean to the W2) or for others, as well. And we don't know if these were "personal" services or truly business related (scheduling and coordination, for instance).

Paying in cash is never the issue. Right now, at least, cash still is legal tender.