Interesting. In my country (Poland), pretty much most of the benefits and perks are taxed as income, so there is no tax advantage in paying employees with them instead of cash.
We weren't always like that, the laws started changing in this direction maybe 10 years ago. Before that, everyone with a decent job was getting a company car, an now company cars are only given for people who actually travel a lot on the job, and everyone else prefers the extra cash instead of the company car.
BTW the laws weren't changed to level the playing field for small companies, it was just our equivalent of IRS fixing loopholes to bring in more tax money.