I don't know why but for some reason VB refuses to concat anything at the end of a variable.

Code:
    Public Function bTag(ByVal bTaggedItem() As Byte, ByVal sTag As String) As Byte()
    Dim sTaggedItem As String = getString(bTaggedItem)
    Dim bReturn() As Byte = getBytes("<!" & sTag & ">" & sTaggedItem & "</" & sTag & ">")
    Return bReturn
    End Function

No matter what I do VB refuses to perform this part of the above function:

sTaggedItem & "</" & sTag & ">"

It shows up with the content of the string sTaggedItem with nothing at the end. I've tried everything I can think of, is there a reason this doesn't work?