You may argue that the line

IF @@trancount > 0 ROLLBACK TRANSACTION is not needed if there no
explicit transaction in the procedure, but nothing could be more
wrong. Maybe you call a stored procedure which starts a transaction,
but which is not able to roll it back because of the limitations of
TRY-CATCH.

Link: https://www.sommarskog.se/error_handling/Part1.html

Code provided is:

CREATE PROCEDURE insert_data @a int, @b int AS 
   SET XACT_ABORT, NOCOUNT ON
   BEGIN TRY
      BEGIN TRANSACTION
      INSERT sometable(a, b) VALUES (@a, @b)
      INSERT sometable(a, b) VALUES (@b, @a)
      COMMIT TRANSACTION
   END TRY
   BEGIN CATCH
      IF @@trancount > 0 ROLLBACK TRANSACTION
      DECLARE @msg nvarchar(2048) = error_message()  
      RAISERROR (@msg, 16, 1)
      RETURN 55555
   END CATCH

Since SET XACT_ABORT is ON, and if instead of insert there was a stored procedure execution, and say we didn’t have the following:

IF @@trancount > 0 ROLLBACK TRANSACTION

1. What are the limitations of TRY-CATCH that would prevent the rollback within the other stored procedure, even in the presence of SET XACT_ABORT ON?

2. Why isn’t the rollback happening in this stored procedure for an error in the underlying stored procedure given that SET XACT_ABORT is ON?