Not really. The US Constitution is a rather short document. This was by design, to only provide a bare framework for a government, to be amended over time. But that didn’t really happen, and most work has been done in Congress and by SCOTUS after Marbury v. Madison.
You can read a whole bunch of info in articles like https://constitution.findlaw.com/article1/annotation03.html, but the tl;dr is that the Constitution says only Congress can make laws, but it can delegate some other authority. The section we’re talking about here doesn’t say it’s a power exclusive to congress, no, but it says Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, and Congress acts through law (literally, “acts of Congress”), so logically, taxes can only be set through Congressional law. And usually they are. But all the rules have gone out the window.
Not a lawyer. Not an American.
But there must be more context, because by my read of this specific text it doesn’t appear to be defined as a power EXCLUSIVE to Congress?
Not really. The US Constitution is a rather short document. This was by design, to only provide a bare framework for a government, to be amended over time. But that didn’t really happen, and most work has been done in Congress and by SCOTUS after Marbury v. Madison.
You can read a whole bunch of info in articles like https://constitution.findlaw.com/article1/annotation03.html, but the tl;dr is that the Constitution says only Congress can make laws, but it can delegate some other authority. The section we’re talking about here doesn’t say it’s a power exclusive to congress, no, but it says Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, and Congress acts through law (literally, “acts of Congress”), so logically, taxes can only be set through Congressional law. And usually they are. But all the rules have gone out the window.