Former leader of hard tax officials tense, in a state (8)
I believe the answer is:
hirohito
'former leader' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'of hard tax officials tense in a state' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is found within the answer.
'hard' could be 'h' (abbreviation used in pencil classifications) and 'h' is located in the answer.
'tense' could be 't' (grammatical abbreviation) and 't' is present in the answer.
'state' could be 'hi' (abbreviation for Hawaii) and 'hi' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'iro' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hirohito that I've seen before include "Emperor of Japan during WW2" , "Emperor of Japan, 1901-1989" , "Japanese emperor during WWII" , "Japanese emperor for most of the 20th century" .)