diff --git a/generate/generate.go b/generate/generate.go
index 3fd2a73..a22f6f5 100644
--- a/generate/generate.go
+++ b/generate/generate.go
@@ -610,23 +610,17 @@ func (this *Generator) generateDecodeBranch(hash [16]byte, typ Type) (n int, err
 				n += nn; if err != nil { return n, err }
 				return n, nil
 			}
-
-			// FIXME: the tag is validated improperly, the result of
-			// generateTag means basically nothing here because
-			// there is no data in the destination, we need another
-			// function that checks if a tag can be assigned to a
-			// PDL type
 	
 			// validate header
 			// TODO: here, validate that length is less than the
 			// max, whatever that is configured to be. the reason we
 			// want to read it here is that we would have to skip
 			// the tag anyway so why not.
-			nn, err = this.iprintf("if %s != ", elementTagVar)
+			nn, err = this.iprintf("if !(")
 			n += nn; if err != nil { return n, err }
-			nn, err = this.generateTag(typ.Element, "(*this)")
+			nn, err = this.generateCanAssign(typ.Element, elementTagVar)
 			n += nn; if err != nil { return n, err }
-			nn, err = this.printf(" {\n")
+			nn, err = this.printf(") {\n")
 			n += nn; if err != nil { return n, err }
 			this.push()
 				nn, err = abort()