I'm a newbie quilter so grain of salt here! I don't starch or tape. I press if there are wrinkles. I lay the backing on the floor and smooth it a bit so it's lying in a natural way for the fabric -- I don't want it stretched out of its natural alignment, if that makes any sense. Then I lay the batting on top and smooth it out, again trying not to stretch. Then the top, same smoothing process.
Now I get down on the floor, crawl carefully to the center, and safety pin. I'll put maybe 10 pins in a 1-2 foot circle around the center. Next, I crawl on off, fold up a side or an end so I can get my hands under the whole thing, and start pinning my way out. I use a hand underneath to make sure everything is smooth before I pin. At this stage I'm usually pinning a foot or so apart. Then transfer to my worktable and put in extra pins or thread basting along/around each quilting line before I stitch it. On the worktable I can flip it over and examine if anything feels funny under there LOL .
It is hard to get the back perfectly smooth and pucker free if using a higher loft batting.