HMRC has produced an online guide - Tax for Dentists - which provides dental professionals with an overview of tax, national insurance contributions and VAT, help for the newly-qualified, information on employing staff, guidance on keeping business records, business expenses, help with completing tax returns, and information on paying HMRC.

HMRC's Mike Purvis said that the guide, an e-learning tutorial, is available online so that dentists can read it in their own time, when it is convenient.

'It's in small sections, so doesn't need to be read all at once. Dentists can read as little or as much as they like, and return to it as often as they need to, whenever it suits them.

'Dentists need to understand their tax liabilities and will find these guides particularly helpful if they are becoming self-employed or treating private patients for the first time,' he said.

HMRC's head of HMRC's Campaigns, Marian Wilson, said: 'We use what we learn from our campaigns to help develop new educational packages for the groups we target, to make sure people can get it right in the future by not repeating the mistakes made by others.'

More than £10m in unpaid tax and penalties has been paid voluntarily by over 1,500 medical professionals who used an HMRC campaign disclosure opportunity for dentists and doctors. This included a dentist who paid more than £300,000 and a doctor who paid more than £1m.

The guidance, which takes between one and two hours to complete, is available from HMRC. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/courses/syob2/thp_d/index.htm.