The US racked up a budget deficit of almost $200bn last month as collapsing tax revenues and swelling government spending battered the country’s finances.

Last month the gap between spending and tax revenues was $192.3bn, nearly four times the deficit in the same period last year and worse than most economists had expected. It takes the deficit for the first six months of this fiscal year to $956.8bn, already far exceeding the record deficit racked up for all of fiscal 2008.

Shrivelling profits at businesses across America have slashed corporate tax revenues in half over the past six months to $56.3bn. Individual income tax receipts, meanwhile, have dropped by 15 per cent to $429.7bn.

But government spending has increased by a third over that period to $1,946.6bn as the administration attempts to shore up the recession-racked economy.

Last month the government spent $321.2bn, including $46bn in capital injections into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing finance companies it controls. More than $10bn was sucked from the government coffers in the form of unemployment benefits as job losses mounted.