poollounger

Have been away from the forum and then log on and started to read this thread. Some of the so called info is purely hearsay, with nuggets of truth and distortion as these things always are. When house hunting two years ago I met up with a Yorkshireman inland who was doing property maintenance etc. He was living in a small village and said his wife was actually getting various allowances to attend language and computing courses. These were not intended for the expats specifically, but were open to anyone.
I can see Mis N's confusion about overseas allowances, but as others have pointed out this could be a number of things. He could be paying the tax in his own country and claiming it back in Britain, it could be an employers incentive to attract overseas drivers to Britain, the list could go on and on.
I have a cousin who works for the World Bank in the USA and refuses to accept the US citizenship to which she is entitled as being a foreign national she pays no tax. Tax offices get it wrong. When my accountant claimed tax I had paid in Germany against my tax bill in Britain some years ago, an inspector said it was my responsibility to ge tthe money back from Germany. My accountant then just pointed out that under the double taxation agreement, the responsibility was the IR's, and we never heard another word.