222
Opinion of the Court
the uncertainty created by these cases were the driving force behind the enactment of § 381:
" 'Persons engaged in interstate commerce are in doubt as to the amount of local activities within a State that will be regarded as forming a sufficient . . . connectio[n] with the State to support the imposition of a tax on net income from interstate operations and 'properly apportioned' to the State.' " Id., at 280, n. 5 (quoting S. Rep. No. 658, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-3 (1959)).1
Within months after our actions in these three cases, Congress responded to the concerns that had been expressed by enacting Public Law 86-272, which established what the relevant section heading referred to as a "minimum standard" for imposition of a state net-income tax based on solicitation of interstate sales:
"No State . . . shall have power to impose, for any taxable year . . . , a net income tax on the income derived within such State by any person from interstate commerce if the only business activities within such State by or on behalf of such person during such taxable year are either, or both, of the following:
"(1) the solicitation of orders by such person, or his representative, in such State for sales of tangible personal property, which orders are sent outside the State for approval or rejection, and, if approved, are filled by shipment or delivery from a point outside the State; and
"(2) the solicitation of orders by such person, or his representative, in such State in the name of or for the
1 See also H. R. Rep. No. 936, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1959) ("While it is true that the denial of certiorari is not a decision on the merits, and although grounds other than the preceden[t] of the Northwestern [States] cas[e] were advanced as a basis for sustaining the Brown-Forman and International Shoe decisions, the fact that a tax was successfully imposed in those cases has given strength to the apprehensions which had already been generated among small and moderate size businesses").
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