Your like query implementation is not correct.

Try this :

public function findTag()
{
    $term = Input::get('tag_name');
    
    return Tag::where('tag_name', 'LIKE', '%' .$term . '%')->lists('tag_name');
}

When I exactly what you have there it returns all of the results. When I only replace the query and leave the rest alone, it doesn't return anything.

Anyone have any ideas?

Check this http://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_like.asp how to use % in LIKE operator.

Maybe die/dump the query so you can see what the DB is actually getting... prior to your foreach() you could try:

$search = Tag::where('tag_name', 'LIKE', '%' . $term . '%')->get();
dd(DB::getQueryLog());