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Universal benefit schemes are often considered to be contradictory to funding through social contributions: because of earnings ceilings the latter is supposedly regressive in nature, and for this reason should finance only contributory benefits. Conversely, it would be consistent to fund universal benefit through progressive income tax. Using a database of comparative micro-data at the household level (LIS, 22 OECD countries), we question the view that social contribution are regressive. On the one hand, our analysis shows that social security contributions are generally redistributive: thus, a higher contribution rate do not lead to a lower redistribution. On the other hand, contributions are actually complementary to the income tax in reducing inequalities throughout income distribution. At the bottom of the income distribution, contributions compress inequalities through a marked progressivity — combining scale and base effects — and, when contributions become regressive (often at the upper end of the income distribution), the income tax takes over the compression of inequalities.