WASHINGTON - The US federal government registered a budget deficit of about $120 billion in October, the first month of the 2013 fiscal year, the US Treasury Department announced on Tuesday.

The October deficit was 22 percent higher than the same month last year, and was larger than economists' forecast for a $114 billion gap.

The federal government raked in a revenue of $184.3 billion and registered outlays of $304.3 billion last month, said the department.

The federal government has run deficits in excess of $1 trillion in each of the last four fiscal years. It reported a budget deficit of about $1.1 trillion in the last fiscal year which ended on Sept 30.

The widening imbalance came as complicated fiscal challenges loom. Unless the Congress acts by the end of this year, a combination of tax hikes and sweeping spending cuts, dubbed as the "fiscal cliff", along with the combined amount of more than $600 billion, was set to kick in next year.

Both the Obama administration and the Congress are under great pressure to work out an alternative plan to avert the massive fiscal contraction which would tip the economy into recession.