Fake IRS tax refund on-hold lure — "your IRS refund of $X is on hold pending identity verification, respond within 72 hours or refund returned to Treasury" targeting US taxpayers during Jan-April refund cycle; SSN + DOB + prior-year AGI + bank-account harvest for downstream tax-return fraud (post-IRS-Notice-2023-26 Dirty-Dozen era)

Fake "your IRS tax refund of $X has been placed on hold pending identity verification — respond within 72 hours or the refund will be returned to the Treasury" email targeting US taxpayers during the annual Jan-April tax-filing and refund cycle. Harvests SSN + DOB + prior-year AGI + bank-account routing info for downstream tax-return fraud — attackers file a fake 1040 claiming the victim's real refund before the victim can resolve the "hold". The IRS has warned about this scam class repeatedly (IRS Notice 2023-26, quarterly Dirty Dozen updates through 2024-2025), but the phish persists because real IRS refund holds DO happen when the Service flags a return for manual review, making the lure credible to anyone who filed and is waiting on a refund. Fires when body references IRS / Internal Revenue Service / tax refund / federal tax return / 1040 / W-2 / direct deposit refund AND contains refund-on-hold / verify-identity / returned-to-treasury / missing-information / respond-within urgency. Excludes irs.gov, treasury.gov, tax.gov, taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov, eftps.gov, and the broader .gov umbrella. Auto-classified as danger via the `-lure` suffix.