After responding to the COVID-19 crisis with a successful shift to virtual classes this spring, Houston Ballet Academy announces its new online summer programming open to the public. During this time when dance enthusiasts are not able to gather in the studio, the Academy strives to reach new students near and far through Summer Saturdays.
“Our doors are closed at the Center for Dance, but our virtual classes are wide open for the community to experience what makes Houston Ballet Academy so special,” says Houston Ballet Academy Director Melissa Bowman. “Come dance with us!”
Through Summer Saturdays, the Academy invites all ages to partake in live, virtual dance classes via Zoom. Summer Saturdays is comprised of two class series, Online Creative Movement and Online Master Classes.
“Our weekly Creative Movement classes are designed for young children and their families, to use their imagination to explore movement and music while building strength, flexibility and balance,” says Bowman.
The Online Creative Movement class series is geared towards children ages two to six, and the whole family can join. The five-class series begins Saturday, May 30, 2020, with the thirty-minute dance class at 10:30 a.m. CST. The cost is $10 per class per household and students can sign up for one or all five classes.
“The Saturday Master Class series gives dancers 14 and older an opportunity to take classes and learn from Houston Ballet’s world-renowned faculty and artists,” says Bowman.
Held each Saturday in June, Online Master Classes will be taught by former Houston Ballet Principal Dancer Lauren Anderson, Houston Ballet II Ballet Master Claudio Muñoz and guest teachers, to be announced at a later date. These virtual drop-in classes will take place from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CST and cost $15 per class.
Houston Ballet Academy’s Summer Saturdays are open to all, bringing world class ballet to living rooms across the globe. To learn more about each class series and to register, please visit https://bit.ly/36c7gRi.
Houstonians will continue to benefit from easier access to free COVID-19 tests as the Houston Health Department and its partner agencies offer 13 testing sites across the city the week of May 18, focusing on vulnerable communities.
Texas Division of Emergency Management
The Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) and the health department will open four drive-thru test sites at these locations:Hilliard Elementary School, 8115 East Houston Street, May 18-20Yolanda Black Navarro Middle School, 5100 Polk Street, May 18-20B.C. Elmore Elementary School, 8200 Tate Street, May 21-23John R. Harris Elementary School, 801 Broadway Street, May 21- 23TDEM sites require appointments, obtained by calling 512-883-2400 or visiting txcovidtest.org. The sites will open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. or until each reaches its daily capacity of 250 tests.
United Memorial Medical Center
United Memorial Medical Center (UMMC) and the health department will extend operations at an existing site and open five new drive-thru sites May 18-22 at these locations:Fonwood Early Childhood Center, 9709 Mesa Drive, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.Forest Brook Middle School, 7525 Tidwell Road, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.United Memorial Medical Center, 510 W Tidwell Road, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.Cullen Middle School, 6900 Scott Street, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.Griggs EC/PK/K School, 801 Regional Park Drive, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.The Houston Community College-Southeast testing site, 6815 Rustic Street, which opened May 7, will continue operations through May 22 from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
UMMC sites do not require people to have symptoms or appointments and have a daily capacity of 250 tests each.
People needing information about UMMC test sites can call 1-866-333-COVID or visit ummcscreening.com.
Houston Health Department Community-Based Sites
The health department continues to operate two free drive-thru COVID-19 community-based testing sites open to anyone, regardless of symptoms. Each site has capacity for 500 tests per day and opens daily until capacity is reached.
People must call the department’s COVID-19 Call Center at 832-393-4220 to receive an access code and directions to the nearest community-based site.
Kroger Health
Kroger Health and the health department will operate a free drive-thru test site at the Acres Homes Multi-Service Center, 6719 W. Montgomery Drive, May 19-23.
The site requires appointments by visiting krogerhealth.com/covidtesting. The site will operate 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. or until reaching its daily capacity of 175 tests.
Federally Qualified Health Centers
The health department is also providing test kits, lab access and equipment to four local Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) so they can expand their COVID-19 testing capacity. The centers and phone numbers people can call to set up testing appointments are:Spring Branch Community Health Center, 713-462-6565El Centro de Corazon, 713-660-1880Avenue 360 Health and Wellness, 713-426-0027 andLone Star Circle of Care at the University of Houston, 877-596-6192.FQHC patients pay what they can afford, based on income and family size, and are not denied services due to inability to pay or lack of insurance.
El crédito de retención de empleados (en inglés) está diseñado para alentar a las empresas a mantener a los empleados en su nómina. La cantidad del crédito es del 50 por ciento de los salarios pagados hasta un límite anual de $10,000, lo que equivale a un monto máximo de crédito de $5,000 por cada empleado durante el año.
¿Quién es elegible para el crédito?
El crédito está disponible para todos los empleadores, independientemente del tamaño del negocio, incluyendo organizaciones exentas de impuestos. Las agencias federales, estatales y locales y negocios que reciben préstamos del programa de protección de pago de cheques no califican.
Los empleadores elegibles son empleadores que operan un comercio o negocio y han experimentado uno de los siguientes:
Operaciones suspendidas total o parcialmente debido a una orden del gobierno debido a COVID-19
Una disminución significativa en los ingresos brutos en un trimestre calendario en comparación al 2019
¿Cómo se calcula el crédito?
El monto del crédito es la mitad de los salarios calificados pagados hasta $10,000 por todos los trimestres calendarios. El crédito máximo para cualquier empleado es de $5,000
Los salarios pagados entre el 12 de marzo de 2020 y antes del 1ro de enero de 2021 son elegibles.
Los salarios no se limitan a pagos en efectivo. También incluyen una parte de la atención médica brindada por el empleador.
¿Qué salarios califican?
Los salarios que califican se basan en el número promedio de empleados a tiempo completo de una empresa en 2019.
Empleadores con menos de 100 empleados, pueden recibir el crédito por los salarios pagados a los empleados, independientemente de si trabajaron o no.
Empleadores con más de 100 empleados podrían solo recibir el crédito por los salarios pagados a los empleados que no trabajaron durante el trimestre calendario.
Si un empleador es elegible debido a una suspensión total o parcial de operaciones, solo los salarios pagados durante el tiempo que el negocio estuvo cerrado cuentan como salarios calificados.
¿Cómo reciben los empleadores elegibles el crédito?
También pueden reducir los depósitos requeridos de impuestos sobre la nómina retenidos de los salarios de los empleados por el monto del crédito. También pueden solicitar un adelanto de los créditos del empleador al presentar el Formulario 7200 (SP) (PDF). Los empleados elegibles pueden usar el crédito de retención de empleados con otro alivio, como el aplazamiento del impuesto sobre la nómina que puede afectar los depósitos y anticipos.
“Today, the City of Houston reported 229 positive COVID-19 cases. The number of people that have tested positive is a reminder that we are still facing a public health crisis. The virus does not discriminate, and people of all ages and ethnicities have been affected.
“I am praying for Council Member Letitia Plummer’s speedy recovery as she isolates at home. Based on my observations, she has been careful to protect her health and the safety of those around her by practicing social distancing and wearing facial coverings.
“In addition to her role with the City of Houston, Council Member Plummer has kept a busy schedule at her two dental practices and distributing masks and organizing food giveaways in the community.
“I will continue to ask everyone, including city employees, members of the public, and elected officials to follow the CDC guidelines for this pandemic. Please wear your face coverings, practice social distancing, get tested, and stay home if you feel sick.”
Access and equity are the focus of the Houston Health Department’s COVID-19 testing strategy moving forward, Mayor Sylvester Turner and COVID-19 Recovery Czar Marvin Odum announced Thursday. The health department will also significantly increase its contact tracing workforce to monitor and contain disease.
“COVID-19 is a real and present danger in all our lives and will be so for the foreseeable future,” Odum said. “As we continue navigating this new reality together, it’s important we become even more strategic in our efforts to lessen the spread through ubiquitous testing and robust contact tracing.”
Using test saturation information from CDC and vulnerability data from UTHealth, the health department identified 20 priority Houston communities to address our most vulnerable and at-risk neighborhoods. These areas have limited access to testing and higher rates of underlying health conditions, making them more vulnerable to severe health outcomes from COVID-19.
“We are still facing a public health crisis. The virus is still in our City and we are working strategically to manage its spread,” Mayor Turner said. “The newly announced plans for more testing and contact tracing will allow us to move forward in a way that will save lives and prevent a resurgence.”
The health department is working with partners on a testing strategy that includes fixed sites, mobile sites and strategic outreach teams.
Fixed sites include Houston’s two large-scale testing sites at Butler and Delmar Stadiums, in addition to expanding testing capacity at Federally Qualified Health Centers.
Mobile sites include the Houston Health Department mobile unit and sites established through partnerships with the Texas Division of Emergency Management United Memorial Medical Center.
Strategic outreach teams are deployed within 48 hours to address immediate needs in congregant settings like nursing homes, long-term care facilities and detention centers. The teams will also respond to people who are homebound or experiencing homelessness.
The testing strategy currently includes up to 24 sites that will be announced as they are established throughout May.
The health department will also hire an additional 300 contact tracers to meet the growing demand to monitor and contain COVID-19 cases. Currently, the health department has about 125 people in this role, most of whom are temporarily deployed from other areas of the department.
“We are tapping into the talent of our local educational institutions and will conduct hiring fairs to meet this staffing need,” said Stephen L. Williams, director of the Houston Health Department. “Not only will this allow us to meet the current need of COVID-19, it allows us to train our future public health workforce.”
Testing and contact tracing accounts for approximately $56 million of the Houston Health Department’s $125 million COVID-19 response plan. The funding will be made available through $404 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act received by the City of Houston.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) encourages businesses to keep employees on their payroll by providing them an Employee Retention Credit. It also helps to make sure workers aren’t forced to choose between their paychecks and the public health measures needed to combat the coronavirus.
Eligible employers can claim this credit for wages paid after March 12, 2020, and before Jan. 1, 2021.
Eligible employers
The credit is available to all employers that have experienced an economic hardship due to COVID-19. This includes tax-exempt organizations. Only two exceptions apply:
1. Federal, state and local governments and their instrumentalities, and
2. Small businesses that receive small business loans under the Paycheck Protection Program.
For purposes of this credit, employers experiencing an economic hardship include those with suspended operations due to a government order related to COVID-19 or that have experienced a significant decline in gross receipts.
An employer may have to fully or partially suspend operations because a governmental order limits commerce, travel, or group meetings due to COVID-19 in a manner that prevents the employer from operating at normal capacity.
A significant decline in gross receipts begins in the first calendar quarter in 2020 in which an employer’s gross receipts are less than 50% of its gross receipts for the same quarter in 2019. The decline ends the first calendar quarter in 2020 after the quarter in which the employer’s gross receipts are greater than 80% of its gross receipts for the same quarter in 2019.
The employer calculates these measures each calendar quarter.
Amount of credit
The tax credit is 50% of up to $10,000 in qualified wages paid to an employee. The employer’s maximum credit for qualified wages paid to any employee is $5,000. Qualified wages include the cost of employer-provided health care.
Example. Eligible employer pays Employee B $8,000 in qualified wages in Q2 2020 and $8,000 in qualified wages in Q3 2020. The credit available to the employer for the qualified wages paid to Employee B is equal to $4,000 in Q2 and $1,000 in Q3 due to the overall limit of 50% of up to $10,000 of qualified wages per employee for all calendar quarters.
Qualified wages
The wages that qualify for the credit vary based on the average number of the employer’s full-time employees in 2019. If the employer had 100 or fewer employees on average in 2019, the credit is based on wages paid to all employees, regardless if they worked or not. If the employer had more than 100 employees on average in 2019, then the credit is allowed only for wages paid to employees for time they did not work. In each case, the wages that qualify are wages paid for a calendar quarter in which the employer experiences an economic hardship.
The amount of qualified wages for which an eligible employer may claim the Employee Retention Credit doesn’t include the amount of qualified sick and family leave wages for which the employer received tax credits under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). This means that the employer can’t use the same wages to determine the amount of the Employee Retention Credit.
How to claim the credit
Beginning with the second calendar quarter of 2020, to claim the credit, employers should report their total qualified wages and the related health insurance costs for each quarter on their quarterly employment tax returns, usually Form 941, Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return. They can receive the benefit of the credit even before filing by reducing their federal employment tax deposits by the amount of the credit. Then they will account for the reduction in deposits due to the Employee Retention Credit on the Form 941. The IRS recently posted Frequently Asked Questions about the ability both to reduce deposits for the credit and to defer the deposit of all of the employer’s share of social security tax due before Jan. 1, 2021 under a separate provision in the CARES Act.
If employers do not have enough federal employment taxes to cover the amount of the credit, after they have deferred deposits of employer social security taxes under the CARES Act as discussed in the FAQs, they may request an advance payment of the credit from the IRS by submitting Form 7200, Advance Payment of Employer Credits Due to COVID-19. They may fax their completed forms to 855-248-0552.
Example. An eligible employer paid $10,000 in qualified wages, including qualified health plan expenses, and is therefore entitled to a $5,000 credit, and is otherwise required to deposit $8,000 in federal employment taxes, including the taxes withheld from all of its employees, for wage payments made during the same calendar quarter as the $10,000 in qualified wages. The employer has no paid sick or family leave credits under the FFCRA. The employer may first defer the employer’s share of social security tax imposed on the wages, then may retain up to $5,000 of the other employment taxes it was going to deposit, and it will not owe a penalty for keeping the $5,000. The employer will claim the credit and reflect the reduced liability for the $5,000 when it files Form 941.
Keep records to substantiate claims
Employers claiming the credit must keep records supporting the credit. An employer should keep all employment tax records for at least four years.
El Servicio de Impuestos Internos les recordó hoy a los empleadores afectados por COVID-19 acerca de tres nuevos importantes créditos disponibles para ellos.
Crédito de retención de empleados:
El crédito de retención de empleados está diseñado para alentar a las empresas a mantener a los empleados en su nómina. El crédito tributario reembolsable es el 50 por ciento de hasta $10,000 en salarios pagados por un empleador elegible cuya empresa ha sido afectada financieramente por COVID-19.
El crédito está disponible para todos los empleadores, independientemente de su tamaño, e incluye a las organizaciones exentas de impuestos. Sólo hay dos excepciones: gobiernos estatales y locales y sus herramientas que les permiten trabajar, y pequeñas empresas que solicitan préstamos.
Los empleadores que califican deben caer en una de estas dos categorías:
El negocio del empleador se suspende parcial o totalmente por orden del gobierno debido a COVID-19 durante el trimestre calendario.
Los ingresos brutos del empleador son inferiores al 50 por ciento del trimestre equivalente con 2019. Una vez que los ingresos brutos del empleador superan el 80 por ciento de un trimestre equivalente con 2019, ya no califican después del final de ese trimestre.
Los empleadores calcularán estas medidas cada trimestre calendario.
Crédito por licencia por enfermedad pagada y crédito de cuidado infantil: El crédito de licencia por enfermedad pagada está diseñado para permitir que las empresas obtengan un crédito para un empleado que no puede trabajar (incluye el sitio alternativo (telework)) debido a la cuarentena del coronavirus o a cuarentena impuesta, o tiene síntomas de coronavirus y busca un diagnóstico médico. Estos empleados tienen derecho a licencia por enfermedad pagada por hasta 10 días (hasta 80 horas) a la tarifa de pago regular del empleado hasta $511 por día y $5,110 en total.
El empleador también puede recibir el crédito para los empleados que no pueden trabajar debido a que cuidan de alguien con Coronavirus o cuidan de un niño porque la escuela o el lugar de atención del niño está cerrado, o el proveedor de cuidado infantil pagado no está disponible debido al Coronavirus. Estos empleados tienen derecho a licencia por enfermedad pagada por hasta dos semanas (hasta 80 horas) a 2/3 de la tarifa de pago regular del empleado o, hasta $200 por día y $2,000 en total.
Los empleados también tienen derecho a vacaciones médicas y familiares pagadas iguales a 2/3 del salario regular del empleado, hasta $200 por día y $10,000 en total. Se pueden contar hasta 10 semanas de licencia calificada para el crédito de licencia familiar.
A los empleadores se les puede reembolsar inmediatamente por el crédito al reducir sus depósitos de impuestos sobre la nómina que se han retenido de los salarios de los empleados por el monto del crédito.
Los empleadores elegibles tienen derecho a recibir inmediatamente un crédito en el monto total de la licencia por enfermedad y licencia familiar requerida, más los gastos relacionados del plan de salud y la parte del empleador del impuesto de Medicare sobre la licencia médica, durante el período del 1ro de abril del 2020, hasta el 31 de diciembre del 2020. El crédito reembolsable se reduce a ciertos impuestos sobre el empleo en los salarios pagados a todos los empleados.
¿Cómo recibirán los empleadores el crédito?
A los empleadores se les puede reembolsar inmediatamente por el crédito al reducir sus depósitos de impuestos sobre la nómina que se han retenido de los salarios de los empleados por el monto del crédito.
Los empleadores elegibles reportarán el total se sus salarios calificados y los costos relacionados con el seguro de salud de cada trimestre en sus declaraciones trimestrales de impuestos sobre la nómina o el Formulario 941 a partir del segundo trimestre. Si los depósitos de impuestos sobre la nómina del empleador no son suficientes para cubrir el crédito, el empleador puede recibir un pago anticipado del IRS si presenta el Formulario 7200, Pago Anticipado de Créditos del Empleador Debido a COVID-19.
Los empleadores elegibles también pueden solicitar un adelanto del crédito de retención de empleados al enviar el Formulario 7200.
COVID-19 has certainly changed our traditional plans this Mother’s Day. While Texas is beginning to open their doors, many families are choosing ways to celebrate Mom at home, rather than a large brunch of social gathering.
Below, we’ve compiled 5 ways you can still make Mom feel special this Mother’s Day.
Order Her Flowers from H-E-B
Nothing says “I love you” more than a beautiful bouquet of flowers from your local H-E-B! The local grocery chain is offering online ordering, letting your order to be delivered to her at her doorstep.
While going to a restaurant to celebrate with the whole family may have been your plans in years past, but this year plans have to change. Treat Mom to a delicious Mother’s Day brunch at home, complete with pancakes, eggs and mimosas!
Go for a Walk
Sometimes all a mother wants on Mother’s Day is to spend quality time with her children. Find a local trail or park near you and go for a walk. Bonus points if you find a nature trail full of beautiful flowers! Reminisce on old memories and talk about exciting plans for the future. Mom will love it!
Let Her Relax
After all she does for the family, Mom deserves some special time to relax this Sunday! Offer to do her household chores for her, babysit the younger kids and give her some time to relax, watch her favorite shows, read, or even nap. She will feel recharged and energized!
Celebrate Virtually
If you’re not able to see your Mom in person this year, help her set up Facetime or Zoom so that she can talk to all of her loved ones from the comfort of her own home. Let her know how much she is loved and appreciated.
