T183 masking

Want to confirm that on production of a T183 they should now ALL be masked if being transmitted electronically (emailed or via download for clients) AND that masking is acceptable for CRA. Just looking at the print set on TaxCycle which offers three choices:

  • Plain Text (req1uired for CRA copies)
  • Hide for security
  • Mask first five digits for security

Just not sure about that first choice!!

February 23, 2021:

Masking of Social Insurance Number (SIN)

No matter the option used to obtain an electronic signature on the T183, electronic filers must ensure that the method used respects the safety and security of personal and tax information. To that end, the CRA has recommended to software developers that when Form T183 is printed or generated from tax software, that the first 5 digits of the SIN be masked. You will notice that the CRA also follows this practice when generating or displaying notices and statements that contain a SIN.

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Yep - I’ve read that when the announcement came out. Seems odd then that TC would still have the option to print in full then?

I set up all my print sets to print SIN’s masked, and same with most individual forms.

I’m sure there are preparers out there who have their reasons for using it and maybe some clients would prefer to see their entire SIN on a print out.

If you are going to print out a form or a return and manually submit it, the form must have the taxpayers full SIN on it.

I did this yesterday and made a few other changes to print settings, all of which continually failed. I finally realized that very briefly, TC was flashing me a message saying that the print settings file couldn’t be saved. No idea why at all. No changes to the system in months.

Changed the security settings on the TC folder in question and all was good. Although both user and admin had full control on the folder…weird.

But now everything prints masked!