diff --git a/cake/libs/view/helpers/html.php b/cake/libs/view/helpers/html.php
index b01333ad8..3fdbdfc70 100644
--- a/cake/libs/view/helpers/html.php
+++ b/cake/libs/view/helpers/html.php
@@ -219,15 +219,12 @@ class HtmlHelper extends AppHelper {
 			} elseif (isset($attributes['type']) && isset($types[$attributes['type']])) {
 				$type = $types[$attributes['type']];
 			}
-		} else {
-			if ($url !== null) {
-				$inline = $url;
-			}
+		} elseif ($url !== null) {
+			$inline = $url;
 		}
-
 		$attributes = array_merge($type, $attributes);
-
 		$out = null;
+
  		if (isset($attributes['link'])) {
 			if (isset($attributes['rel']) && $attributes['rel'] === 'icon') {
 				$out = sprintf($this->tags['metalink'], $attributes['link'], $this->_parseAttributes($attributes, array('link')));
@@ -254,13 +251,7 @@ class HtmlHelper extends AppHelper {
  * @return string A meta tag containing the specified character set.
  */
 	function charset($charset = null) {
-		if (is_null($charset)) {
-			$charset = strtolower(Configure::read('App.encoding'));
-			if (!$charset) {
-				$charset = 'utf-8';
-			}
-		}
-
+		$charset = current(array_filter(array($charset, strtolower(Configure::read('App.encoding')), 'utf-8')));
 		return $this->output(sprintf($this->tags['charset'], $charset));
 	}
 /**
diff --git a/cake/tests/cases/libs/view/helpers/html.test.php b/cake/tests/cases/libs/view/helpers/html.test.php
index 854bca6f4..43e995b6b 100644
--- a/cake/tests/cases/libs/view/helpers/html.test.php
+++ b/cake/tests/cases/libs/view/helpers/html.test.php
@@ -141,6 +141,15 @@ class HtmlHelperTest extends UnitTestCase {
 		Configure::write('Asset.filter.css', false);
 	}
 
+	function testCharsetTag() {
+		Configure::write('App.encoding', null);
+		$this->assertPattern('/charset=utf-8"/', $this->Html->charset());
+
+		Configure::write('App.encoding', 'ISO-8859-1');
+		$this->assertPattern('/charset=iso-8859-1"/', $this->Html->charset());
+		$this->assertPattern('/charset=UTF-7"/', $this->Html->charset('UTF-7'));
+	}
+
 	function testBreadcrumb() {
 		$this->Html->addCrumb('First', '#first');
 		$this->Html->addCrumb('Second', '#second');