336
Opinion of the Court
Even shutting our eyes to that loophole, we are unpersuaded that North Carolina's corporate income tax is designed to support the maintenance of an intrastate capital market. North Carolina, like most States, regulates access to its capital markets by means of blue sky laws, see generally N. C. Gen. Stat. ch. 78A (1994), and their accompanying regulations, which prescribe who may sell securities in North Carolina, the procedures that must be followed to do so, and the fees imposed for the privilege. See, e. g., N. C. Gen. Stat. § 78A-28 (1994) (registration procedures and fees); 18 N. C. Admin. Code § 6.1304 (1990) (same). Absent probative evidence to the contrary, which the Secretary has not supplied, we can reasonably assume that North Carolina has provided for the upkeep of its capital market through these provisions, not through the general corporate income tax.4
If the corporate income tax does not support the maintenance of North Carolina's capital market, then the State has not justified imposition of a compensating levy on the ownership of shares in corporations not subject to the income tax. While we need not hold that a State may never justify a compensatory tax by an intrastate burden included in a general form of taxation, the linkage in this case between the intrastate burden and the benefit shared by out-of-staters is far too tenuous to overcome the risk posed by recognizing a general levy as a complementary twin.
B
The second prong of our analysis requires that "the tax on interstate commerce . . . be shown roughly to approximate— but not exceed—the amount of the tax on intrastate commerce." Oregon Waste, supra, at 103. The Secretary ar-4 Our skepticism regarding the Secretary's capital markets argument is reinforced by the fact that the Secretary did not advance it to the state courts.
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