I think the perception that social security and retirement deductions are taxes stems from the fact these are obligatory. Insofar as we have no choice in the matter these have all the properties of taxes.
With the caveat it is difficult to compare one country to another because the value of government services you get is somewhat subjective, I offer the following data point for France: if a company outlays 100k, the employee would take home about 58k before income tax. A single person would pay 10k in income tax on that. All in he would therefore have 48k to spend. This might be useful for those of you wishing to evaluate the cost of hiring in France.
maelito|8 years ago