Digital Economy and Permanent Establishment, Again: A Mine, an Oil or Gas Well, and … Data Mining?

The emergence of the digital economy has made user data a valuable asset at commercial levels. This commercial appeal translates into economic benefits for those digital companies that manage to collect, select, and sell it. Data mining and its business (with the actual international tax regulation and awaiting international agreements for implementing measures based on, for example, a new tax nexus) is difficult to subject to tax in the place where the users of the data collected reside. For this reason, it is necessary to search for other solutions and study the possibility of considering data mining as a permanent establishment (PE) similar to a mine, a well, or any other place of extraction of natural resources. Likewise, it will be necessary to analyse the concept of a user and their value creation within the digital economy from a tax perspective.