Compensation for Living Overseas??

[Helen in OH]

If you live overseas for your husband's job, how are you financialy compesated? Does it include the following:

1. Housing allowance.

2. Allowance to travel home.

3. Education Allowance for the children.

4. Cost of living Allowance.

 

Thans-a-bunch,

 

Helen in OH

[Carrie12345]

We haven't done it, but dh's company covers the physical moving expenses (packing supplies, manpower, freight, etc.) and adjusts salary to reflect COL if it is higher than the current location. That's it. No more, no less.

[Firefly]

I would imagine it depends on the company so I can only tell you our circumstances. As a teenager we lived overseas (Middle East) for many years with my Dad working for several different companies during the course of our time there (almost 10 years). Most of the companies paid for the move, provided allowances for housing (if not the actual housing itself), a car, travel home several times a year, and education expenses --because the highest level of education in Saudi Arabia provided for Western children was 9th grade, the company paid for my sister and me to attend boarding school in the U.K. (or wherever we would have wanted to go, we picked the U.K.) HTH!

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

Most of the folks I know have all the allowances you are discussing. The amount of travel home is usually limited to once or twice a year. Frequently these allowances actually appear on your W2 as income so you may be taxed on them depending on how your company sets this up. You should also have a moving allowance, perhaps an allowance that covers a vehicle (registration and shipping). Some people have household staff and drivers depending on their responsibilities to the company. The education allowance may be specific about what is paid for, local schools or boarding school, how many trips from boarding school to you per year, which type of school fees are included, etc. Homeschool expenses in lieu of tuition are another issue altogether. There should also be some provision for medical care or medical evacuation insurance depending on the country. And mailing services.

 

Or-the company could offer you none of the above and just a salary. It varies widely.

[TravelingChris]

We are a military family and are also familiar with DOD civilian policy. As military, we always get a housing allowance no matter where we live if we don't live in base housing. Overseas, we do get a COLA. We also get a moving in allowance to account for things like certain fixtures not being standard in certain countries and also to help pay for transformers for the electric differences. Military families get one visit back to the United States every four years. They pay for the flights, you pay for your lodging. We caqn also take advantage of Space A flights. Schooling costs depend on whether you are near a DOD school or not. If not, you get a large allowance for school but it has to be secular material. Your allowance can also be used to supplement the education to encompass what would have been available at school - group art lessons, gym lessons, music lessons.

 

DOD is similar but with more generous travel allowances ( I believe it is a home visit every two years). Both active duty and civilian get transportatiion paid for your college student once a year roundtrip. SO you end up paying for one trip yourself and they pay for one. You need to find other arrangements for short breaks like Thanksgiving or spring break.

 

I also knew contracter families and they seemed to get better moving deals but worse deals with COLA. The super important thing about COLA is to make sure it changes very frequently like every month. The lack of frequent changes really hurt certain workers when the Euro kept going up and up while we were living there. Other important financial considerations are whether you get exemptions from local taxes (European taxes tend to be enormously higher than ours), whether you get allowances or subsidized gasoline costs (their taxes make gas at least double the price of ours, and in some countries it is quadruple), and what kind of housing your housing allowance will get you. WIth the military either active or civilian, they make sure you are getting something akin to your rank or position though in a given country, it may not be anything equivalent to what you get in the US.

[Snickerdoodle]

We lived abroad but worked for foreign enterprise. That means we got local pay and paid local taxes and none of the other perks that other expats got who were transferred abroad.

[Kate in Arabia]

We got a moving allowance, a "set up your new home" allowance, both of those were one-time disbursements. We get a housing allowance, annual tickets home for dh and I and up to three kids, and annual education allowance for up to three kids. We also get health insurance. We do get reimbursed our homeschool expenses, although it is a hassle to get the paperwork the way they want it(it seems to change every year).

 

When we were deciding whether or not to accept dh's job offer here, we made a list of what we were getting through his work in the States and what we were being offered. That gave a nice concrete comparison. If you or your dh has a job offer, just be sure to read the fine print in the contract, and if possible find some online communities that would talk about job contracts and living for the location you're considering.

 

The US tax laws have changed a bit, I'll have to check to be sure, but last year if you made under abt US$80,000 you didn't have to pay US taxes on that money; this wasn't just salary, but any income you got from your job, you have to report housing and education payments as well. I think that threshhold amount has changed this year, but I'm not sure, and I'm also not sure about individuals vs households, but taxes are something you may want to keep in mind as well (I'm assuming you're a US citizen). It changes some if you are paying local taxes for whatever country you're in, but I'm not sure on details because I haven't had to figure it (no taxes here).

 

hth!