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Notes -
Every W2 employee has tax withholding which is usually pretty close to their actual owed taxes. The only way to avoid this is to be a contractor, in which case you will need to file payments of your estimated taxes as the year goes by.
You do engage with the income tax system annually, but that is to calculate your final actual taxes owed for the year. If that is less than you paid in via withholding, then you get a refund (this is the normal case), and if it is more, then you have to write a check for the remainder. If it is ever or routinely substantially more, perhaps due to side business activities or investments, then you may be required to make periodic payments of your estimated annual taxes before the end of the year. The IRS very much wants to be giving people a small but positive refund every year, and many people even consider it to be a "bonus" and plan around it.
Withholding is most definitely mandatory, and the IRS will be very unhappy with you if you try to dodge it or intentionally have less withheld than your expected taxes. I'm not sure where you got the idea that it isn't, but it's not true.
Universal Federal withholding was established in the US back in WWII, as a "temporary" measure to get the Feds money needed for the war effort sooner, and never removed. Some fiscal conservatives have advocated for removing it to actually force most Americans to write large checks every year, and thus save for them and make it more painfully obvious exactly how much they are paying. This is most likely a non-starter given how bad most people are at saving for such a high-magnitude future expense and how much effort would be needed to chase down everybody who accidentally or intentionally failed to save enough or otherwise dragged their feet. It's a pretty extreme position that nobody anywhere near actual power is prepared to touch. Pretty much everyone has since gotten in on the act of getting other entities than individuals to actually write the checks for tax payments, as it's much easier to coerce businesses than individuals.
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