Rhode Island Sends Tax Refund Checks Signed by Mickey Mouse

Golly, I didn’t know Mickey was so generous.

Well, okay, maybe he’s not. As reported by CNN, 176 people in Rhode Island got a curious check in the mail recently. What was intended to be a regular old tax refund check was signed, not by state officials, but by Mickey Mouse and his very dead creator, Walt Disney. Which, for those taxpayers, was surely concerning; while whimsical, few banks are likely to accept checks from anthropomorphic cartoon mice.

Typically, per CNN, these checks are signed by Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island’s state treasurer, and Peter Keenan, the state controller. The mixup, which affected mostly corporate tax refunds mailed to taxpayers last week, was a result of the checks being printed using test materials—Mickey and Walt being the signees on Rhode Island’s Division of Taxation’s internal test printings.

As for the checks, they were, naturally, not cash-able, and were voided by the state, with replacement checks set to be mailed out with the proper signatures.

“The division is continuing to proactively contact impacted taxpayers to remedy the error, and apologizes for any inconvenience the error may have caused,” Jade Borgeson, chief of staff for Rhode Island’s Department of Revenue, told CNN.

The lesson’s simple: don’t accept money from mice. Except for Mrs. Brisby, I hear she’s good for it.

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