Just when you think things can’t get any weirder. Residents in Rhode Island were in for a shock when they received ‘Mickey Mouse’ checks instead of their official Tax refund. Yes, the treasury department in the State of Rhode Island sent out some very real Tax checks, only they were signed by the fictitious animated rodent Mickey Mouse and his long deceased creator Walt Disney. Making the refunds invalid to cash. So, how did this happen?
It appears that the Rhode Island Department of the Treasury is nothing more than a Mickey Mouse operation. Several residents in the state, who’d been anxiously awaiting their tax refunds for the year, opened their mailbox to find that Mickey and Walt were apparently now working for the local treasury department.
One Rhode Island resident received a sales tax refund this past week. Ready to cash it in, they noticed that the names of General Treasurer Seth Magaziner and State Controller Peter Keenan had been replaced with the names Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney. This might have been funny. But the fake signatures have rendered the checks worthless, and they can’t be cashed out unless the bank teller is clueless and fails to notice.
This may sound like a cruel practical joke when many are relying on their refunds to help in these cash-strapped times. But Rhode Island is blaming the error on a technical glitch. Chief of Staff for the Department of Revenue Jade Borgeson says this.
“As a result of a technical error in the Division of Taxation’s automated refund check printing system, approximately 176 checks with invalid signature lines were printed and mailed to taxpayers on Monday 7/27/2020. The invalid signature lines were incorrectly sourced from the Division’s test print files.”
Corporate tax refunds, sales tax rebates, and tax credit refunds were amongst the types of checks sent out by Rhode Island with these goofy signatures attached. Rhode Island isn’t automatically sending out replacement checks, but those who received the wrong signature checks can get a replacement if they request one from the state.
At this time, it isn’t known if any of these checks with the signatures of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney were actually cashed at the bank. As many recipients didn’t notice the signers right away, and its possible that the bank didn’t notice them either. This story was first reported by Deadline. You can check out the image of the check signatures below.
