Methods and devices for reconstructing coefficient levels from a bitstream of encoded video data for a coefficient group in a transform unit. Parity hiding is used to signal the parity of the upper left coefficient of the coefficient group. Based on the parity, either the significant coefficient flag or the greater-than-one flag is encoded/decoded for that coefficient, but not both. The greater-than-one flag is encoded/decoded irrespective of whether a maximum number of greater-than-one flags have been encoded/decoded with respect to the other coefficients in the coefficient group.