diff --git a/library/cloud/ec2_tag b/library/cloud/ec2_tag
index 7ea2e8dab61..71e6792698d 100644
--- a/library/cloud/ec2_tag
+++ b/library/cloud/ec2_tag
@@ -159,7 +159,7 @@ def main():
         tagdict[tag.name] = tag.value
 
     if state == 'present':
-        if set(tags).issubset(set(tagdict)):
+        if set(tags.items()).issubset(set(tagdict.items())):
             module.exit_json(msg="Tags already exists in %s." %resource, changed=False)
         else:
             for (key, value) in set(tags.items()):