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.