EY Law Central America

Managing Partner Tax&Law EY Central America, Panama & Dominican Republic

Rafael is one of the founders of the EY member firm in Central America, Panama & Dominican Republic (2002).  He is the Managing Partner of the Central America, Panama & Dominican Republic practices.  And until 2022 he was the Managing Partner of the Latam North region Tax and Law practices. He is also part of the Latin American Business Center (LABC) group in New York and the Strategy & Transactions (SaT) team.

His experience includes local and international tax planning, corporate restructuring and reorganizations, cross-border transactions design and implementation, overall mergers and acquisitions advisory (M&A), financing and investment structures, transfer pricing and supply chain planning, tax controversy, shared services’ centers design and taxation, cross-border taxation in the region, expatriate taxation, project financing, and international trade, free trade zones and tax incentive systems.

He is a member of the Family Business group that specializes in advisory services to family offices and organizations in areas such as corporate structuring, cross border planning, estate planning, asset protection, private equity, international tax compliance and reporting, corporate governance and structuring.

He contributes to various international tax publications such as International Tax Review and Chambers.  From 2011 to 2018, he was ranked as a leading Band 1 lawyer in Corporate / Tax and since 2019 to 2024 he has been ranked as an Eminent Practitioner by Chambers Latin American Guide.  In 2024 he was also ranked by Legal 500 as a “Leading Partner” and as “Highly Regarded” by International Tax Review.

Spanish/English

He is a member of the International Bar Association (IBA), International Fiscal Association (IFA), the American Bar Association (ABA), New York State Bar Association and the Costa Rican Bar Association.  He is the Coordinator of the Tax Commission of the National Chamber of Business Associations (Unión Costarricense de Cámaras y Asociaciones de Empresas del Sector Privado (UCCAEP) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Costa Rica Free Trade Zones Association (Asociación de Zonas Francas de Costa Rica (AZOFRAS) and a member of the Americas Free Trade Zones Association (Asociación de Zonas Francas de las Américas (AZFA).  He is also a member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), Costa Rica Chapter and Euro-Latam Chapter.

He has an LLM in Tax from the University of Florida and a JD and undergraduate degrees from the Universidad de Costa Rica.