As a broad simplification, this is how the Roman Empire worked. Of course, in the Ronan Empire incentives were generally aligned, since the person doing the tax

As a broad simplification, this is how the Roman Empire worked. Of course, in the Ronan Empire incentives were generally aligned, since the person doing the taxation also had to do the defending — if you were incompetent at the latter, you’d be dead soon enough. The problem with this system in modern times is that incentives are unaligned to objectives.