Yes, you can do this. Take a look at https://www.beorg.app/learning/using-templates-to-keep-a-reading-log/. It doesn't use tags, but you this should be clear from the edit template screen. Any issues let me know.
Not currently. You should however be able to specify tags by including them in the title using the tags format used by Org mode. For example:
Buy eggs :Shopping:Groceries:
Specifies the title "Buy eggs" and then the tags Shopping and Groceries.
Abe Lovelob