Glitch blamed for Mickey Mouse signing tax refund checks

July 31 (UPI) -- Rhode Island state officials said a technical glitch was to blame for 176 tax refund checks being mailed out bearing the signatures of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney.

Jade Borgeson, chief of staff for the Rhode Island Department of Revenue, confirmed the checks were mailed out this week with the signatures of Walt Disney and his most famous cartoon creation instead of Rhode Island General Treasurer Seth Magaziner and State Controller Peter Keenan.

"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," Borgeson in a statement to WJAR-TV.

"The invalid signature lines were incorrectly sourced from the Division's test print files," she said.

Borgeson said most of the erroneous checks were corporate tax refunds.

"Corrected checks will be reissued to impacted taxpayers within one week," she told WPRI-TV.