A spate of senior hires from a big four firm has swiftly followed July’s completion of the merger between multinational law firm Pérez-Llorca and the Peruvian-based Miranda & Amado.
Arturo Tuesta, Paola Saavedra, and Ronald Vargas have joined as partners from Deloitte Peru alongside 13 associates, including lawyers and accountants. The expansion creates one of Peru's largest tax practices and reflects a broader move towards multidisciplinary tax practices within law firms.
As well as Peru, Pérez-Llorca, Miranda & Amado operates in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and Colombia. In another statement of intent, the firm strengthened its international platform in September by making partner hires in its New York and Madrid offices.
Pablo Sotomayor, a partner at Pérez-Llorca, Miranda & Amado who has been at the firm for 21 years, and former PwC Peru professionals Tuesta, Saavedra, and Vargas discussed the rationale behind the move with ITR and what it could mean for the future of tax practices at law firms.
Moving on: ‘They worked in the Real Madrid of the big four firms’
ITR: Arturo, you served as the head of tax at a big four firm in Peru. How did this move come about for you and your colleagues?
Arturo: We discussed internally if we’re coming, telling our accountant staff we are going to move into a law firm. And for the lawyers, it was like going to play for Real Madrid or Green Bay Packers. So it was huge. For the accountants, it was, what are we going to do there? They worked in the Real Madrid of the big four firms. We said this is a challenge.
I explained that they are going to have a career the same as any lawyer here, the same as any associate here. That’s very important. And they said, OK, we’re following you guys.
We’re now integrating the teams. We said, we’re going to work all together – this is not legacy big four and legacy Pérez-Llorca.
Building a multidisciplinary tax practice: ‘It’s going to be the whole package’
ITR: What’s the strategic vision behind Pérez-Llorca, Miranda & Amado’s expansion, and what client needs does it address?
Pablo: We wanted to bring more strength to the team. We had a team of 10 before Paola, Ronald, and Arturo came. The team now is 26 people. And the interesting thing is that of these new associates, 10 of them are accountants, as well as Paola. She’s now a partner.
There are two important new strengths that we have added to the firm. From one side, within the legal services that we render, we have now added all the experience that Arturo and Ronald can bring, also from the big four perspective. And, undeniably, the accountants are very important for rendering tax services that have an accounting side. In the past, we used to [offer] tax services or tax advice but left the accounting side; now we are able to do that, not only for companies but also for individuals. It’s a very innovative way of rendering legal tax services from law firms. And it’s going to be the whole package for the clients.
ITR: Paola, on joining Pérez-Llorca, Miranda & Amado, you said that “this multidisciplinary model will pave the way for more accountants who wish to take on leadership roles in law firms”. Could you and Arturo expand on the benefits such integration brings?
Paola: The real value of having lawyers and accountants working together is that tax issues are usually not only legal or accounting. The clients have business problems and they need different perspectives. So having both in the same team helps us provide more complete solutions. This model makes the tax team stronger.
Accountants bring a different perspective and have enabled the firm to offer a tax compliance service, particularly from both a tax accounting and legal perspective. For me, it’s a great challenge and I’m really excited about the project. This model also gives accountants the opportunity to develop their own practice within a law firm.
Arturo: The work between lawyers and accountants together is very important because the typical client of a law firm is a legal director, the legal VP. The client of a big four is a CFO, general accountant, or the tax manager. Now we could cover all their needs: we have the accounting experience, we have the legal experience, and we have the relationships that we have built along all those years. This is a very strong combination.
ITR: How have the appointments enabled the firm to deepen its capabilities in particular areas?
Arturo: In terms of tax compliance, the big four firms have the main part of the market because they provide services to review taxes, to support audits of the tax administration, to review accounting from a tax perspective. When we started the conversation with the firm, this was something very important for us because this is what we were doing. So part of us, we are lawyers, part of us accountants. And we said, OK, we can add this to the firm and we can start competing in sectors that typically the legal firms are not involved in.
We are offering the client something totally integrated because we not only have the tax legal matters experience that Pablo and his team has but we also have other areas of law. So if we have an agribusiness company, we have somebody who is an expert in that, in mining, in all the sectors. So that allows us to offer a more comprehensive product and that’s what the clients are looking for. In many sectors, particularly in private wealth, people are looking for only one touchpoint because they don’t want to go to four firms to receive services.
I feel that in the future, firms need to integrate services. Not only accounting services but other areas of expertise, because you need to compete in a global environment.
ITR: How has the integration process progressed since the merger?
Pablo: We can definitely see a difference not only from the business side but also from the marketing side. In Peru, the integration of Miranda & Amado and Pérez-Llorca has had a very important impact. The market and the clients recognised the strength of being an Ibero-American law firm and then realised that this is something bigger.
Before, Miranda & Amado was part of an alliance of Latin American firms called Affinitas, but it wasn’t a merger; it was just ‘best friends’. Now we are one firm with Pérez-Llorca, which allows us to sell services in Peru, but also in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and Colombia. And there has been a lot of interest in that.
Having a firm of this size, it was very important to strengthen the tax department. We are very well known in M&A, financial operations and dispute resolutions, but we needed to make it bigger and hopefully it’s going to be a lot more work that can be absorbed. This is very important for the vision and the strategy of the firm, also from an international point of view.
We are now the second-largest department in the firm after dispute resolution and we aim to be the biggest tax department among the law firms in Peru. Also, we never had accountants before as part of the team. This is very innovative for a law firm. So I think that everybody’s going to remember this integration as something important, not only for the firm but also for the market and the way that tax services can be rendered within Peru.
Local challenges: ‘There is a lack of trust in the tax administration’
ITR: Which areas are generating the most demand from clients today, and why?
Ronald: First, international taxation. We are seeing increasing demand for advice on cross-border transactions, transfer pricing, and the interaction between Peruvian tax rules and international developments. This trend has also led the private sector to actively promote the negotiation of double taxation agreements; for example, the Peru–Japan tax treaty and the recently signed Peru–UK treaty.
The Peru–UK tax treaty will be particularly valuable in two areas. First, it introduces a reduced 10% withholding tax rate on interest payments compared with the 30% domestic rate that may apply to interest paid to related parties. This should facilitate cross-border financing and lower the overall cost of capital for business and investment projects. Second, the treaty provides greater certainty for international investors that use the UK as an investment platform. It can help attract foreign investment into Peru by offering a more predictable, efficient tax framework.
Second, tax controversy. Clients are focused on identifying and managing tax risks as a priority but particularly as tax authorities become more sophisticated in their audit and enforcement activities. In addition, tax disputes no longer end at the administrative stage before the Peruvian tax authority in many cases. Many cases now continue before the judiciary and certain instances through constitutional proceedings.
Third, clients now are looking for advisers who not only understand technical tax issues but also the commercial and strategic objectives behind their business. This is one of the areas where our new multidisciplinary team can create significant value.
ITR: What are the biggest practical tax challenges your clients are facing at present?
Arturo: There are a lot of problems in taxation in Peru. First of all, any tax procedure takes a long time. You can stay in a tax procedure for six or seven years. Nobody likes that, and justice that takes a long time is not justice. The other matter is that the tax administration is a very formal organisation, so they pay attention to formal aspects that really don’t matter in relation to the substance of a transaction. So you face more problems trying to prove something and to show documents than to explain the nature of a transaction. That burden is really high for our clients. And there is a lot of subjectivity in the decisions of the tax administration and that affects the confidence of the big taxpayers. So there is a lack of trust in the tax administration.
On international matters, we are expecting to have a more significant double treaty network. Some government officials have said that the double tax treaty with Spain that was negotiated back in 2005, I think, is going to be renegotiated and we expect to have it in place in the near future.
ITR: The OECD’s 2026 Tax Policy Review for the country said “there is scope for Peru to strengthen its tax system to better support growth, equity, and revenue mobilisation” and has highlighted the 2024 tax-to-GDP ratio of 16.3% as low compared with other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Are any significant reforms on the horizon to address such perceived issues?
Pablo: This is a problem that has existed in Peru since forever. The GDP ratio is always low. So there is always an intention of the government to increase the tax basis, to accomplish a bigger collection of taxes. But there are no really important reforms on the way that could lead to a meaningful and sustainable expansion of the tax base. Most of the measures being considered tend to focus on small and medium-sized businesses rather than on addressing the broader structural issues affecting the tax system and the contribution of larger businesses, which are usually the most affected by the Peruvian Tax Administration collection efforts.
In my view, one of the most important issues that needs to be addressed is the tax audit process, particularly the extensive documentation and information requirements imposed on taxpayers during audits. Improving and streamlining the audit process could significantly enhance the efficiency of tax administration without necessarily relying on additional tax burdens.
Looking ahead: ‘We are going to show the strength of our network’
ITR: What does the future look like for Pérez-Llorca, Miranda & Amado’s tax practice?
Pablo: I see a future of greater growth, integration, and international exposure for Pérez-Llorca, Miranda & Amado’s tax practice. A demonstration of that ambition is the integration of Arturo, Ronald, and Paola. In the near future, you’re going to see us participating in more transactions and, most importantly, in more international deals; working more closely with our sister firms in Spain, Mexico, and Colombia; and having greater exposure than we had before as a local firm. This international exposure is going to be very significant for the growth of the firm and the Pérez-Llorca brand.
Arturo: During the next months, we are going to show the local market the strength of our network and our work as an integrated team. We have the ability to say, we’re going to give you the possibility of working in each country with the best one. We’re not limited to our network and that implies a real advantage for our clients.
We are dedicating a lot of time to planning to accommodate our different practices and traditions to our new structure in the tax department. I personally expect that this change in the law market will improve how law firms provide services.
