To judge by the hundreds of attentive advisors who packed the Chicago Hilton's International Ballroom on Thursday, nothing can compare to getting estate planning advice from tax lawyer Natalie Choate.
The Harvard-educated, Boston-based counsel in the trusts and estates department of Nutter McClennen & Fish appeared on stage at the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) 2012 national conference to get into the nuts and bolts of retirement benefits.
No surprise: Choate, right, had plenty to say about IRAs, annuities and the Internal Revenue Service. Big surprise: not only is she smart, 
she's funny.
In fact, Choate is a popular speaker on the advisor circuit because she really knows how to engage an audience with her direct speaking style. On Thursday, she urged her listeners to read the brand-new 7th edition of her book, Life and Death Planning for Retirement Benefits, and to send their questions to her website, http://www.ataxplan.com/.
"I love to get questions and answer them," she told the NAPFA audience, many of whom lined up to buy Choate's book after her presentation. "I welcome your questions."
Here are just a few of Choate's latest tips about recent developments and current trends in estate planning:
New Taxes to Drive Roth Conversions in 2013. In 2013, after this year's elections, expect to see higher tax rates, Choate advised her NAPFA audience. When that happens, she said, a flood of clients will want to convert their traditional IRAs into Roth IRAs.
