Tax Policy Center has put together an analysis of Senator Cruz' tax plan. Here are some quotes from an article about it that appeared in Dow Jones Business News:
Mr. Cruz's plan would reduce federal tax collections by $8.6 trillion over 10 years, and that doesn't include additional interest on extra debt, according to the Tax Policy Center's analysis, released Tuesday.
Mr. Cruz would repeal the corporate income tax, payroll taxes, taxes created as part of President Barack Obama's health-care law and the estate tax.
[H]e would impose a 16% "business flat tax" that would become the government's primary revenue source.
[B]usinesses would deduct payments to other businesses and capital expenses but not wages. His business flat tax is economically equivalent to the value-added taxes used in every other industrialized country.
Mr. Cruz would also lower individual income tax rates to 10% and exempt the first $36,000 of a four-person family's income.
Every income group would pay less in taxes in 2017 than they do now. The remaining tax burden would shift from high-income households to everyone else. The bottom 20% of households would pay an average federal tax rate of 3.8%, down from 4.1% under current law.
The top 0.1% would have a 15.2% average tax rate, down from 34.2%. This group, which would pay about 13.5% of federal taxes under current law.
[An] extensive argument for balanced trade, and a program to achieve balanced trade is presented in Trading Away Our Future, by Raymond Richman, Howard Richman and Jesse Richman. “A minimum standard for ensuring that trade does benefit all is that trade should be relatively in balance.” [Balanced Trade entry]
Journal of Economic Literature:
[Trading Away Our Future] Examines the costs and benefits of U.S. trade and tax policies. Discusses why trade deficits matter; root of the trade deficit; the “ostrich” and “eagles” attitudes; how to balance trade; taxation of capital gains; the real estate tax; the corporate income tax; solving the low savings problem; how to protect one’s assets; and a program for a strong America....
Atlantic Economic Journal:
In Trading Away Our Future Richman ... advocates the immediate adoption of a set of public policy proposal designed to reduce the trade deficit and increase domestic savings.... the set of public policy proposals is a wake-up call... [February 17, 2009 review by T.H. Cate]