Corporations have been approved to receive $14 billion in tax refunds from the Internal Revenue Service thanks to a hotly debated pandemic tax break, a government watchdog report has found.

The IRS has so far received more than 41,000 applications from businesses looking to take advantage of a provision in the March 2020 pandemic relief bill that allowed companies to apply business losses to years in which they weren't profitable. That could then generate a quick turnaround tax refund, according to the report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that was released on Wednesday. More than 1,200 of the companies receiving a refund got more than $1 million, according to the GAO data.

The tax break was included in the bipartisan CARES Act, but has since come under fire from Democrats who have called for it to be repealed because, they say, it largely aids corporations and wealthy investors. Republicans counter that the strategy is one that Congress has repeatedly deployed during economic crises to provide liquidity to companies.