diff -r 24e3349cba8e -r 6320101a638c mercurial/localrepo.py
--- a/mercurial/localrepo.py	Thu Dec 09 17:33:40 2010 -0600
+++ b/mercurial/localrepo.py	Tue Dec 14 17:10:01 2010 -0600
@@ -308,10 +308,11 @@
 
         date: date tuple to use if committing'''
 
-        for x in self.status()[:5]:
-            if '.hgtags' in x:
-                raise util.Abort(_('working copy of .hgtags is changed '
-                                   '(please commit .hgtags manually)'))
+        if not local:
+            for x in self.status()[:5]:
+                if '.hgtags' in x:
+                    raise util.Abort(_('working copy of .hgtags is changed '
+                                       '(please commit .hgtags manually)'))
 
         self.tags() # instantiate the cache
         self._tag(names, node, message, local, user, date)