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Stephen Kinsella

@stephenstroud.bsky.social

5.4K followers 460 following 4.4K posts

Ex EU Antitrust Lawyer Chair: Laura Kinsella Foundation, Law For Change, Clean Up The Internet and Press Justice Project; Board member: Hacked Off and Reprieve; Director, Stroud Book Festival Member, UK Trade and Business Commission

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Pinned

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · Feb 22

I need to look up how to pin this.

groups.google.com/g/usaafricad...

British Writer Pens A Description Of Trump

groups.google.com

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 3m

I would be happy for it to last for the first couple of years or until they achieve a certain modest turnover or value. After that, yes take out cover. And be personally liable for avoidable pollution, personal injury etc.

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 22m

You are positing an individual with over £11m net wealth who doesn’t have £20k in the bank.
How are they paying the school fees, nanny and holidays? Do they have to sell shares each time they go to Waitrose?
You keep going on about “taxed income” which you know is largely irrelevant.

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 26m

I am just happy that we are now talking more about a “wealth tax” in principle and about a fairer distribution of the tax burden between income and capital.

There are many ways to skin a cat but you do have to catch the cat first.

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 32m

At what point do we reach sufficient circumstantial evidence and reasonable suspicion for the police to launch an investigation? Or do they plan to wait until after the next election?

Lady Bee Middlemast-Neal @mistyswoman.bsky.social · 3h

Oh.

Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 4h

“Here Farage is, in Gill’s office, with Voloshyn’s wife Nadia, on the day Gill makes an intervention on behalf of Medvedchuk’s channels, with an employee of one of those channels, whose husband started bribing Gill to make these statements 6 days earlier”

bylinetimes.com/2025/10/11/s...

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 3h

In that discredited wealth report the only tangible reason they cited for people leaving the UK was Brexit.
Most people are here for a host of reasons: culture, language, schools, safe society etc.
There is little evidence that many will leave because of a 2% tax that they would barely notice.

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 3h

No, not necessarily. It is paid out of your bank account, which might have been funded from sale of an asset.
Under our proposal if you have net wealth of £11m you will pay £20,000 tax. Your wealth if prudently invested should have increased by around £500,000 in that time.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 3h

Dan is always very good. He had a thread that completely debunked the report about capital flight. Having said that, he doesn’t agree with us on the wealth tax but all of the projections (in either direction) are based on assumptions on which we might reasonably disagree.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 6h

You should certainly have to give up your column in The Telegraph and your right to stand as an MP.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 6h

Nobody knows who is leaving but the study everyone refers to is bogus, based on some people changing their location on LinkedIn (yes, really).
And as you say many are not paying much anyway. But they can’t take the physical assets with them.
Most won’t leave.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 6h

Also our population is 12 times that of Norway and I’m not suggesting this is a linear exercise but 12x2bn coincidentally raises the £24bn we have calculated our wealth tax could raise.

Thanks for the encouragement.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 6h

You’re very dismissive of 2bn but that doesn’t sound like “failure” to me.
We of course could do better.
People can devote their energies to creating objections or finding solutions - that’s a choice.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 6h

Sigh. We will of course assess the value in your hands of the shares in the company.
You keep baldly asserting they “don’t work”. They raise substantial revenues in Norway, Spain and Switzerland. They can certainly be made to work. It’s really about political will to grasp the issue.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 9h

I don’t see any great challenges in levying a tax on a physical asset in the jurisdiction. We are talking taxes on individuals here, not corporations.
I understand it doesn’t appeal to you, so you can vote for the party that wouldn’t do it.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 9h

Wordle 1,575 2/6

🟩🟩⬛🟨⬛
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@davidpbmaddox.bsky.social @rsteinholz.bsky.social

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 16h

Again, I would be fine with that.
Why shouldn’t any country be able to levy taxes on assets located there if they choose?

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 16h

Maybe they meant “mostly full of foreigners”?

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 16h

I’m trying to imagine what the retaliation would be.
That their country of origin imposes a wealth tax on Brits who live there maybe?
Well, fine. Wealth taxes will work best once universal.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 18h

This is seriously disturbing.

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 18h

"Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling productive capacity and setting the stage for the next crash."

Some real decadent-late-capitalism shit here.

Everything Is Becoming a Bank

Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling pro...

jacobin.com

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 21h

I think someone coined Man Of The Paypal.
With him it’s almost always about the money.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 22h

There's a pattern here. I recall when Roger Bolton was axed and complained how senior BBC figures often refused to explain or admit mistakes.

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 23h

Very much enjoying this one.
I laughed at the comparison to a sitcom where every so often you get a burst of Hegel.
And then I thought: The Young Ones.

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 1d

Because she, much as Farage himself claimed to be in 2017, is “skint”.

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 1d

As long as she pretends it’s her first home of course. No tax inspector is ever going to look into that.

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Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 1d

It also could be/have been quite a costly libel suit.

Stephen Kinsella @stephenstroud.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, if they hire it they own it.
But as you point out, isn't it just shoddy journalism that has nothing much to say about online/offline?

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