The payroll tax is not officially a tax since it is officially considered a premium towards social security, which is officially not a government program but is a type of insurance annuity
It shares all the characteristics of a tax, and none of the characteristics of an annuity.
You don’t choose to pay it, and you don’t get back what you put in. They take based on a percentage of income, and they give you whatever they decide to give.
You may call that whatever you want, if we are playing semantic games. You may even call it a klurg, if we are playing Dr. Seuss games. But I’m playing the English game, so I’ll call it a tax.