If you missed it, Monday was the day you were supposed to have taken care of your annual contribution to the operation of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, the South Carolina Board of Cosmetology and hundreds of other functions of the state and federal government that you've never heard of.

Or that may be vital to your life.

Whether it came out of your pay all during the year or you had to write a check on Monday, your money went into a pot of roughly $5.6 billion that flowed from the pockets of individual South Carolina taxpayers into the coffers of Washington and Columbia.

At least that's approximately what the bill came to in the most recent years from which figures are available from the Internal Revenue Service and the state Department of Revenue.

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Of that total, Uncle Sam gets the lion's share. South Carolinians paid nearly $3.4 billion to the federal government in 2004 (for the 2003 tax year), according to information provided by the IRS.

The state collected about $2.2 billion for the 2004-2005 fiscal year, Department of Revenue spokeswoman Stephanie Jones said.

The bucks already have been flowing at the speed of light, in both directions, with a record number of people filing electronically this year.

As of Thursday, taxpayers nationwide had filed 17.6 million returns by computer, surpassing last year's total of 17.1 million, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

By Friday, the South Carolina Department of Revenue had received 1.5 million returns -- about 69 percent of them filed electronically, up from 53 percent last year, spokeswoman Stephanie Jones said.

Chandu Kutte wasn't in that group.

One, he doesn't like computers. And two, he thrives on deadlines.

"I don't get much excitement," the retired chemical engineer from Taylors joked after dropping off his returns at the Greenville Main Post Office. "When the day starts coming, then my brain starts working. Otherwise I'll be lazy."

Like many people who push the deadline, he was paying in rather than expecting a refund.

Plenty of returns were flowing in at the post office Monday afternoon, but not nearly at the rate of past years, said Greenville Postmaster Patricia Sullivan.

"Two years ago we used to rope off a certain part of Washington Street and redirect traffic," she said.

"We paid for police to come in and redirect people to make sure it was safe for our customers, but we just don't do that anymore because we have had such a decrease in the amount of hard copies that are mailed."

Midnight drop-offs are gone. Post offices closed at 7 p.m. and the last pick-up at the Main Post Office was at 8, but Saturday hours have been extended across the county, she said.

"We've tried to make it as easy and as painless as we could," Sullivan said.

Torrie Gibson, a 28-year-old Greenville resident who works at Duke's Sandwich Shop, was one of those who had already taken care of her tax business with her computer.

"If I can get it back quicker, I'd rather just get it back," she said. She used the money to pay off bills and to go shopping.

Sharon Coker of Simpsonville was dropping off business returns for a CPA she works for, but she also had already taken care of her own taxes via the Internet.

"It wasn't bad at all," she said. "I think it's a matter of adjusting your deductions so you try to come out even so it's not a big surprise."

If you're still waiting on a return, you can check its status online at IRS.gov. Go to "Where's my refund," and put in your Social Security number, filing status and the exact amount of refund you are expecting.

As of April 7, the average federal refund nationally was $2,290, according to IRS spokeswoman Dianne Besunhder.

By Friday, the South Carolina Department of Revenue had issued about 1.1 million refunds, with the average being $657.31, said Jones, the department spokeswoman.