My federal tax withheld was 2000.00 why did i only get back 1000.00?

[goreneego]

my income was 23000.00 and  i only had oe job the whole year. infiled as single, i have no kids and

[Hal_Al]

The purpose of withholding is to pay taxes "as you go". You should not expect to get  all your income tax withholding back.

$1000 is the approximate correct amount of income tax for a single person, with no dependents and/or credits, to pay on $23K of income.