The U.S. federal government registered a budget deficit of about 120 billion U.S. dollars in October, the first month of the 2013 fiscal year, the U.S. 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 dollars and registered outlays of 304.3 billion dollars last month, said the department.

The federal government has run deficits in excess of 1 trillion dollars in each of the last four fiscal years. It reported a budget deficit of about 1.1 trillion dollars 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 dollars, 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.