The high degree of centralization of tax legislative power in China has produced frequent controversies in practice, and is also fundamentally inconsistent with certain basic principles of public finance and the rule of law. However, this arrangement is commonly assumed as a given for the contemporary Chinese polity. This article challenges this prevalent view. It argues that the centralization of tax legislative power began only in 1977, and was by no means a fixed institution before that time. Moreover, such centralization strengthened between 1977 and 1993, which was a period regarded as the golden age of fiscal decentralization. Thus there was a sharp contrast at the time between the distribution of tax legislative power and the predominance of fiscal decentralization. The article argues that this contrast could not be explained by the lack of importance of law during the period. “Taxation according to law” was a core idea in the development of the tax system, and this was inevitable due to the need to have a consistent set of tax rules for everyone to follow, to give these rules the backing of the force of the state, and to ensure that such rules were known to the public. The high degree of tax legislative centralization in China is thus historically contingent, and cries out for explanations as to its causes.