Over two thirds of platforms are not providing advisers with holistic capital gains tax (CGT) planning support, despite it being an "issue they’re grappling with daily", FSL has found.

The tax reporting firm’s latest research found that less than a third of platforms provide tax tools that enable advisers to include off platform assets in their plans for clients.

FSL said this is despite 27% of advisers viewing this as an important functionality, with the same proportion believing that scenario planning tools are "must have" features.

However, a quarter of platforms provide neither of these functionalities.

FSL stated that its findings reflect a separate study from the lang cat that revealed recent changes to CGT announced in the Autumn Budget were impacting 48% of advice firms, with a quarter stating that the impact was sizable.

It comes as HMRC found that since 2019/20, 36% more people are paying CGT, while at the same time, investigations into unpaid CGT liabilities more than tripled to 14,223 in the 2023/24 tax year, as HMRC cracked down on investors.

This generated £202.4m in recovered tax in this financial year, which is a £180.8m year-on-year increase.

Managing director at FSL, Michael Edwards, said: "We’re not surprised to see advisers are increasingly concerned about how CGT is impacting their work and clients’ portfolios – especially post-Budget. With the government wanting to raise more revenue, and further hikes to CGT not being ruled out in the next autumn statement this means more demand on advisers’ time.

"It’s good to see many platforms have the absolute basic tools in place to support advisers. Though it’s increasingly apparent that they need more sophisticated solutions to help ensure clients make the right investment choices to maximise any tax allowances and provide them with the right data to ensure they avoid hefty penalties. This sort of activity can be complicated and time consuming for advisers so it’s vital that they’re adequately supported by their platform provider."

Director at 11.2 Financial Planning, Greg Moss, added: "CGT planning has become a major issue for the majority of our clients and is a big part of our service and advice process. Changes to allowances in particular have meant many clients now have an ongoing need to plan their disposals and exposure to CGT, and as advisers, we need good, reliable tools to help us with this. Platform functionality is still very variable. Good CGT reporting functionality is a key part of our platform due diligence because it is so embedded in our periodic review process."

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