No. The withholding system isn't accurate enough to do this and can be gamed anyway. (I'm thinking back probably 20 years ago, one of our employees absolutely

No. The withholding system isn't accurate enough to do this and can be gamed anyway. (I'm thinking back probably 20 years ago, one of our employees absolutely furious with the accountant for messing up their taxes and leaving them with a huge bill they couldn't afford. Reality: They bought a house, everyone knows your taxes go down when you buy a house so they increased their exemptions. Oops, the tax effects of buying a house weren't anything like what they thought.) Furthermore, the system doesn't work too well with variable incomes (it's based per-check) and should two married people both have variable incomes it can't work, period. (We are both self-employed--and some years ago I threw in the towel on even trying to get it right. I simply stay at the safe harbor limit. Come Apr 15 I expect to be off by 4-digit amounts, but it could be in either direction.) And your threshold won't catch most cheating. Not drawing an income will of course be suspect, but the guy who reports $50k but took $30k in cash out of the till over the year won't show up on your radar. I actually get a 1099 but my wife does not--no computer can know if she's reporting accurately. They would have to do a bit to even realize she's working (she's past retirement age.)