Category and tag with same name

IN my blog, if I have a category and tag with the same name, it will make the tag have a number in the URI.

Example:

category/php

tags/php-2

Is there anyway to make my tags with the same name as an existing category, to not append a number to the end of them for my links?

Tags and Categories use the same system, So that is not possible. It will not hurt SEO in any way to use php-2, it is just visually displeasing.