Palin’s role in increasing the oil tax on oil companies, is also complex. The tax is enormously popular with most residents because it resulted in $1,200 being sent to each citizen to help with gas and oil costs.

In this Associated Press article, she is given credit for the tax:

Shortly after becoming governor in 2006, she pushed new oil taxes through the Alaska Legislature, saying the taxes proposed by her predecessor, Frank Murkowski, were too favorable to the oil companies. She was bucking Exxon Mobil, BP PLC and ConocoPhillips, which strongly opposed the legislation.

The new tax brought in an estimated $6 billion in the last budget year, bulging Alaska’s treasury with an expected surplus of as much as $9 billion. That enabled Palin to push a second initiative — giving each Alaskan $1,200 to help them cope with high energy costs.

Credit is given in other articles to Democrats in the legislature, which had been pushing for a revised tax and pushed for a higher tax than Palin proposed.

Los Angeles Times:

Many who have worked with her — and against her — say that in the case of the oil tax, she piggybacked on Democratic efforts that were well underway.

“There’s always been a little bit of an air of an opportunist about the governor,” said state Sen. Hollis French, a Democrat, who has been a strong advocate for the public getting a larger slice of Alaskan oil and gas revenues.

This year, the state expects to take in about $10 billion in petroleum revenues, a record.

French said that Palin initially embraced a bill that was fairly tepid and would have raised less money than a similar bill supported by her Republican predecessor. She worked with Democrats — who constitute about a third of the Legislature — and a stronger bill was crafted. Half the Republicans supported it.

“It would be incorrect to say the bill came from the governor,” French said.

The New York Times reported:

A debate is on now as to whether Ms. Palin’s policies will be wise for the state in the long run. Some economists have questioned, for example, whether the three-quarters of a billion dollars or so given to Alaskans this summer in the oil-bounty checks (a bill passed this summer with Democratic support in the Legislature), might have been better used in the state’s rainy-day fund.

And the oil tax overhaul, which linked state payments to net profits from the oil companies, rather than gross revenue, also exposes the state to potentially deep hits when oil prices decline. There are no neighboring states or regional economies to provide an alternative if the local economy dries up, nor is there a state income tax to fall back on.

“The state has always been exposed, but now it’s even more so because the state is now sharing the market risks more with the industry,” said Matthew Berman, a professor of economics at the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. What might happen if commodity prices plunge is untested territory, he said.

“Nobody knows how the Palin administration is going to react to that, because they haven’t faced that problem yet,” Mr. Berman said.

The AP article also states Obama advocates a tax on oil profits, which Palin opposes on the national level:

Sound familiar?

Obama has proposed taxing the windfall profits of the five biggest oil companies and giving people $1,000 to pay for high energy costs. Palin called such financial help “a tool that must be on the table” although she differs with Obama on where the money’s source.

Like McCain, Palin says a national windfall profits tax on oil companies will hinder domestic energy production. Democrats are expected to be quick to ask: If it’s good for Alaska, why isn’t it good for the country?