underpayment
Americannoun
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the act of paying less than is required or owed.
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a payment which is lower than the money required or owed.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Increasing your withholding can help you avoid a large tax bill and possible underpayment penalties, although it won’t change the total amount of tax you owe.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 8, 2026
That lack of care reportedly also extended to human employees, as D’Amaro’s division was forced by the federal Department of Labor to pay back wages to park workers who protested underpayment.
From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2026
If your employer doesn’t withhold enough, you might owe taxes with your tax return and an underpayment penalty.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 25, 2026
Licences were revoked for breaking rules including failing to provide promised work and underpayment, and helping people to circumvent immigration rules.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2025
His collection rate was about 95 percent; he attributed the underpayment to oversight, not fraud.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
But even that isn’t a useful number because it includes underpayments — where the federal government failed to pay money it should have.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 4, 2026
“It is unacceptable that wildfire survivors—people who have lost everything—were met with delays, underpayments, and roadblocks when they needed help the most.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 4, 2026
All the employers named on DBT's list were fined up to double the total amount they owed to staff, some for underpayments dating as far back as 2013.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2025
According to the nonprofit Department of Angels, 70% of the roughly 2,000 insured Eaton and Palisades fire survivors who were surveyed said delays, denials and underpayments are “actively derailing recovery.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2025
The projected gross tax gap — made up of failed payments through nonfiling, underreporting and underpayments — doesn’t account for late payments or IRS enforcement.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 12, 2023
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
