Without looking at your panel it is difficult to make an accurate reply - but I doubt you have any 'taps' at all - you have splices. This is common and permitted by the electrical code (if there is sufficient room in the cabinet without overfilling, etc....). This practice of splicing in the cabinet is no different than splicing a circuit in a junction box. However, many home inspectors don't have a clue what they are doing and site this splice as a tap and write it up.
IF however you have two wires 'landing' on a circuit breaker (rather than 2 wires spliced together and only one wire landing on the circuit breaker) this might be an issue....normally only one wire is allowed to 'terminate' on a breaker unless that breaker is rated for two wires (there are sev. mfrs. that do rate their breakers for 2 wires).
RE: "A friend said it is no big deal and would just make the breaker trip "quicker" than if it had one wire going to it."....this is nonsense. A breaker trips because of the 'load' imposed on it, not because a circuit is 'spliced'.
[This message has been edited by dana1028 (edited July 10, 2003).]
