Sound Financial Advice and Light Comedy Over Lunch for Indian Doctors

By Jawahar Malhotra

HOUSTON: With the Holidays just around the corner, the Indian Doctors Association used the occasion to hold its Networking Lunch this past Saturday, November 16 at the Hilton Post Oak. “It was a chance for some of the existing members to mingle with prospective new members interested in the IDA”, explained IDA President Dr. Uttam Tripathy, “as well as to describe the community work that the organization has done over the year”.

The IDA was founded in 1981 and incorporated as a non-profit in 1983 and with over 600 members, it is the largest body that is the voice of the 5,000 Indian doctors in the Greater Houston area. Its ten Board members and three student representatives go through the year implementing events that further its community outreach in four areas.

Tripathy outlined the work in these four areas that the IDA pursues. Through its nearly 25 year-old Indian Doctors Charity Clinic, 1,500 patients were seen free of charge last year. IDA has focused on building partnerships with other volunteer and non-profit community organizations like the IACF, ICC, BAPS and the Harris County Medical Society. The IDA has offered scholarships to high school students interested in medicine, medical students and the Baylor College of Medicine. Lastly, through seminars and exclusive arrangements with retailers, IDA offers its members networking opportunities.

Apart from social interaction, the event was an opportunity for the attendees to hear about the services that the investment firm Morgan Stanley, which had sponsored the event, offers from Gary Iyer, a financial advisor who has recently joined the firm. He was helped in describing the breadth of the MS expertise by a team of local executives: Jeffrey Thomas, Sr. VP, Wealth Management; Diego Patino, VP Private Banking and Tony Dabit, VP Investments and Taxes.

Iyer has been active in the investment world for many years and has written many articles on the subject. He showed his knowledge of various investment vehicles and offered the physicians a free financial analysis of their portfolios, which can usually run into a couple of thousand dollars. “We intend to start a physicians fund from Houston”, he disclosed, “and take it nationally from here”.

Thomas heads the Live Oak Group within MS and manages a billion dollars under his portfolio. He explained how MS holds 50 per cent of the wealth management in the US and the different resources that MS has to manage this soundly. He articulated the difference in government debt for Japan, the US and other countries and how this could affect investments in the US.

Patino is a lending specialist who works in the three year-old private bank set up by MS. He deals with large and complex financial transactions but also deals with financing for commercial real estate, residential mortgages and even the MS credit cards through American Express.

Dabit immigrated to the US from Jordan and is fluent in Arabic. He works for the Jackson Group, a MS partner, and specializes in taxes. He spoke about the effect of the 3.8% tax that will kick in on all items next year for people making $200,000 and over – $250,000 for couples – to fund this. This will be on top of the 4.6% increase in the top tax bracket (from 35% to 39.6%) that will also go into effect in 2014. “I encourage physicians to look into estate planning”, explained Dabit, “as there are different ways to minimize taxes like trusts and deferring tax payments”.

The event included a light lunch catered by the hotel and Indian appetizers beforehand. After Iyer’s presentation, a raffle of entrants yielded Namita Tuli as the winner of a round-trip airline ticket to India. Sunil Thakkar, the host of the popular Music Masala radio show and a well-known local comedian and entertainer made an appearance to share some light-hearted American and Bollywood material with the attendees, bringing out many a snicker and a smile.