I don't know much about Italy but should be pretty similar to Germany where we generally say the employer pays double. Example person unmarried, no kids, 35.

- net: 2000€

- gross: 3100€

- company cost: 3850€

In Poland, it's like this, for an country-wide-average salary:

- net: 4300 PLN - gross: 6000 PLN - total employer cost: 7200 PLN

So, the total tax burden is around 40%.

What gets neglected in these discussions though is that everything employer pays is counted as a cost he can write off from revenue to decrease his profit taxes (assuming company makes profit!). So, the effective cost on employer side is lower than 7200 PLN - naive calculation, assuming 15% profit taxes, would make it 0.85 * 7200 PLN = 6100 PLN.

Salaries are always considered the cost of doing business, so I'm not sure what your point is here. What is important is that many people can't wrap their head around the fact that this additonal 1200 PLN which is labeled as "employer contribution" to social security is in fact part of their salary. So people do not realize that their tax burden is 40%, they think it is just 29%.

Also, to make it worse, once you get your 4300 PLN salary into your bank account, you pay on average 16% VAT on every purchase (8-23%, depending on the item bought). So in reality your net salary is 4300*0.84 = 3612, making total tax burden almost 50%.

Double is far of from what was mentioned for Italy.