The formatting tags are displayed when you add a text area to a view because the view does not support the rich text formats. It displays the tags so you do not lose the formatting information when you export the data and re-import the data.
i have this same issue, i use a text area as the data inserted can sometimes be a considerable amount, i dont require formatting so is there a way of making the text area plain text only, so i have no formatting? and therefore don't see the rich text tags
If I show a textarea in a view it shows the formatting controls such as Font Face = "Verdana". It shows correctly in the form.