Commenting out php doesn't work
Permalink//<b><?php echo t('Tags')?> : </b>
But then when I save the file and refresh the page, the block using this php actually displays the comment characters like this: // Tags:
What am I doing wrong? If I completely remove the line, things display how I want them to, but I don't want to make a practice of removing code.

<b><?php // echo t('Tags')?> : </b>
You put the // or # in front of the php statement itself (which doesn't necessarily mean the start of a line).
Thanks for the correction ;)