diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/4378-proxmox-inventory-tags.yml b/changelogs/fragments/4378-proxmox-inventory-tags.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..04110977d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/4378-proxmox-inventory-tags.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+---
+bugfixes:
+  - proxmox inventory plugin - fixed the ``tags_parsed`` field when Proxmox
+    returns a single space for the ``tags`` entry (https://github.com/ansible-collections/community.general/pull/4378).
diff --git a/plugins/inventory/proxmox.py b/plugins/inventory/proxmox.py
index fc56297490..f2dba5309b 100644
--- a/plugins/inventory/proxmox.py
+++ b/plugins/inventory/proxmox.py
@@ -323,8 +323,10 @@ class InventoryModule(BaseInventoryPlugin, Constructable, Cacheable):
 
                 # Additional field containing parsed tags as list
                 if config == 'tags':
-                    parsed_key = self.to_safe('%s%s' % (key, "_parsed"))
-                    properties[parsed_key] = [tag.strip() for tag in value.split(",")]
+                    stripped_value = value.strip()
+                    if stripped_value:
+                        parsed_key = key + "_parsed"
+                        properties[parsed_key] = [tag.strip() for tag in stripped_value.split(",")]
 
                 # The first field in the agent string tells you whether the agent is enabled
                 # the rest of the comma separated string is extra config for the agent