Cite as: 532 U. S. 557 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
of his salary within the prohibition of Article III." Id., at 282. The Court conceded that Miles had reached the opposite conclusion, but it said that Miles "cannot survive." 307 U. S., at 283. Still later, this Court noted that "[b]ecause Miles relied on Evans v. Gore, O'Malley must also be read to undermine the reasoning of Evans." United States v. Will, 449 U. S. 200, 227, n. 31 (1980).
Finally, and most importantly, we believe that the reasoning of Justices Holmes and Brandeis, and of this Court in O'Malley, is correct. There is no good reason why a judge should not share the tax burdens borne by all citizens. We concede that this Court has held that the Legislature cannot directly reduce judicial salaries even as part of an equitable effort to reduce all Government salaries. See 449 U. S., at 226. But a tax law, unlike a law mandating a salary reduction, affects compensation indirectly, not directly. See ibid. (distinguishing between measures that directly and those that indirectly diminish judicial compensation). And those prophylactic considerations that may justify an absolute rule forbidding direct salary reductions are absent here, where indirect taxation is at issue. In practice, the likelihood that a nondiscriminatory tax represents a disguised legislative effort to influence the judicial will is virtually nonexistent. Hence, the potential threats to judicial independence that underlie the Constitution's compensation guarantee cannot justify a special judicial exemption from a commonly shared tax, not even as a preventive measure to counter those threats.
For these reasons, we hold that the Compensation Clause does not forbid Congress to enact a law imposing a nondiscriminatory tax (including an increase in rates or a change in conditions) upon judges, whether those judges were appointed before or after the tax law in question was enacted or took effect. Insofar as Evans holds to the contrary, that case, in O'Malley's words, "cannot survive." 307 U. S., at 283.
571
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