With "emacs -Q" and: (setq org-tag-persistent-alist '( ("ADMIN" . ?a) ("BLOG" . ?b) ("DEVEL" . ?d) ("GET" . ?g) ("LIFE" . ?l) ("MAIL" . ?m) ("JOB" . ?j) ("QUESTION" . ?q) ("PROJECT" . ?p) ("READ" . ?r) ("SEE" . ?s) ))
if I call *Org tags* selection dialog (by C-c C-q, org-set-tags-command) I see repeated entries from org-tag-persistent-alist. Currently I switch to org-tag-alist variable which work fine for me (but semantically not same). Emacs : GNU Emacs 24.2.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.10) of 2012-09-09 on trouble, modified by Debian Package: Org-mode version 7.8.11 -- Best regards!