> So you have no idea what your actual income would be
Payroll taxes aren't some secret things which are impossible for an employee to calculate on their own. You're right, it's not usually directly shown to an employee on their paystub, but it's pretty trivial to do the math and see what your employer paid (or was at least originally liable before any weird tax handouts, but typically rare) for your salary.
I do think payroll taxes should be required to include on paystubs if even just as an informational aspect to people. People should have a real understanding of how much labor is taxed compared to capital. People see "capital gains is 15%? Gosh that seems high..." without realizing how much of their W2 income was taxed. Most people I talk to can't even ballpark what their effective income tax rate was, I often hear "oh I had to pay like $800 in taxes this year, that sucked!" No, you paid a lot more than that, you just didn't pay attention.
Payroll taxes aren't some secret things which are impossible for an employee to calculate on their own. You're right, it's not usually directly shown to an employee on their paystub, but it's pretty trivial to do the math and see what your employer paid (or was at least originally liable before any weird tax handouts, but typically rare) for your salary.
I do think payroll taxes should be required to include on paystubs if even just as an informational aspect to people. People should have a real understanding of how much labor is taxed compared to capital. People see "capital gains is 15%? Gosh that seems high..." without realizing how much of their W2 income was taxed. Most people I talk to can't even ballpark what their effective income tax rate was, I often hear "oh I had to pay like $800 in taxes this year, that sucked!" No, you paid a lot more than that, you just didn't pay attention.