US tax collectors slashing American rate for high-flying area (8)
I believe the answer is:
airspace
'area' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'us tax collectors slashing american rate for high-flying' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'american' could be 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names) and 'a' is present in the answer.
'rate' could be 'pace' (synonyms) and 'pace' is found in the answer.
'tax collectors' could be 'irs' (I've seen this in another clue) and 'irs' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for airspace that I've seen before include "What pilot goes through" , "Here planes fly" , "Atmosphere over (area of) earth" .)