Please help me on how to structure taxes on an LBO model I had to do for a PE interview

Hey guys,

I'm interviewing for a PE role for when I graduate Sloan. I was an engineer before business school, so I've just self taught LBO models, etc and probably a noob. So when I look at LBO models online, I see a simple way to model taxes (25% or 30% of EBT). Just a simple calculation of a moderate percent of EBT.

Soo when I went to a small PE shop and did a modeling test, the instructions said to treat the taxes as the holding company is an LLC, pass through entity, something about distributions, then I believe mentioned it mentioned "on capital gains". I had no idea what to do. When I looked at the past years income statement, tax amount was 51% of EBT 3 years prior to transaction date, taxes were 22% of EBT 2 years prior and then taxes were 43% of EBT 1 year prior to transaction date. Maybe they had DTL that effected it to be that way. If it helps in understanding I believe subordinate debt was 8% of equity, management had 10%, and owners were at 82%.

I feel very noobish for not knowing this. I was able to do the rest of the model, but they're scheduling another technical competency interview for me so I absolutely want to be competent by then. It's hard to remember what the instructions said, but if any of you can piece together "Model taxes as this company is an LLC, pass through entity, distributions, capital gains". Percent of EBT was useless for this or at least I thin. Thanks.