It took just one day after a New York Times story reported that catalogue firms would start collecting sales taxes on out-of-state orders for angry consumers to humble mail-order executives who had agreed to the arrangement.

As a result, the companies backed off yesterday from the tentative agreement that their trade group, the Direct Marketing Association, had reached with tax authorities in various states.

• After receiving calls from customers yesterday at its offices in Freeport, Maine, the L. L. Bean catalogue firm quickly issued a statement asserting that it "has no plans to change its practices now or in the foreseeable future" to begin collecting sales taxes from out-of-state customers.

• The president of the Direct Marketing Association admitted the public response "makes it a lot less likely that there will ever be an agreement."

• Years of unwillingness by the direct marketers to collect sales taxes from purchasers -- fortified by two Supreme Court rulings -- left states with no practical way of coaxing taxes out of individuals.

• But years of fighting tax authorities in scores of states and municipalities had left the companies looking for a tax deal they could live with.

The agreement would have given companies which collected taxes several benefits. These ranged from protection against multiple audits to the right to run promotions and otherwise maintain a limited business presence outside their home state. Participants in the agreement could also have obtained waivers from back taxes -- ending what had often been bitter squabbles.

If implemented, the pact would have cost consumers some $1.2 billion annually in sales taxes.

Observers say the mail-order industry seriously misjudged how customers would react. Although industry studies had showed that paying sales taxes was a concern to only a small minority of customers, some customers reportedly felt nothing but outrage in their calls to companies' "800" numbers.