The aim of the paper is to assess the scale of taxing authority exercised by municipalities (gmina) by granting tax reliefs, tax exemptions and tax deferrals. Additionally the paper assesses the impact of tax concessions and exemptions granted by the municipality on the amount of compensatory part of the general subvention received from the state government budget. The data analysis was conducted with the application of Besti@ software which contains data from reports prepared by local governments. The analyses cover the years 2006 - 2017. The study concludes that: 1. The power of taxing authority is primarily exercised by municipal councils (the legislative and controlling body).2. When exercising their taxing authority, municipalities prefer primarily to lower tax rates below the maximum levels set by the central authorities.3. Tax concessions and exemptions are granted least often by the cities with poviat rights and most often by rural municipalities.4. By granting tax concessions on their own initiative, municipalities may lead to a situation in which they will be assigned to a higher income category of municipalities and this will result in obtaining a lower amount of the compensatory part of the general subvention