It's a surprising number, but a useful one for calibration. Most people assume that the number is closer to 1 in 100 or even 1 in 1000, but that's because they forget the vast, vast numbers of people who just quietly run their own operations in some form. You don't have to be Apple to make enough money to pay the bills on your own, or even reach the high net worth category.

It's worth noting that the numbers don't vary that much between the US and the EU, which actually weakens my claim that such a tax would be politically unpopular if introduced. About 1 in 20 Germans seem themselves to own enough of a business to fall under their own exit tax, checking just now, but I'm not familiar enough with DACH business practices to know if setting up an actual honest-to-goodness LLC for a one man operation is as common there as it is in the United States.