Your coach doesn't want you tapering until it's time to taper. Coach has you "running through" races, or racing them on tired legs, because you're not supposed to be feeling good or peaking yet — you're essentially using them as extra-hard training sessions and as a gauge for how your fitness is progressing.
When it's time to taper - when you've got quals or regionals etc coming up - the coach will give you a few days to taper, maybe even a week depending on race distance. Hang in there.
There IS sometimes a benefit to a midseason mini-taper, mostly psychological but it can help resolve little niggle-type injuries or clear up accumulated fatigue. Helps a lot to suddenly be shown that your training is paying off by being allowed to taper and run a great time mid-season. But yeah, depending on how the season is going, coach may or may not throw that into the mix. 95% of the time, they know what they're doing and your job is to trust them and do training as prescribed, which in this case means suffering through hard blocks of work and trusting that the payoff will come at the right time.