Meta tags (title and description meta tag in specific) are quite beneficial since they are used by SE�s to create snippets to show in search results.
If you create an impressive title and description, it might help to improve your CTR (click through rate).
I would like to clarify that Google does not consider the Meta Keyword tag at all.
Here�s an exhaustive list of meta tags
http://support.google.com/webmasters...n&answer=79812