I got married in 2024 then moved abroad with my spouse. We did not officially live together in 2024. However, before going abroad, my spouse had to move out of their apartment because the lease ended. Spouse stayed at my mom's house, informally (no rent, no bills) before leaving the country with me. We plan to file seperately (I have almost 100k debt and am a student, very low income). Does this short time count as living together (I live with my mom, but the house is not mine)? I ask to see how it will affect the Roth IRA.
Your living situation will not affect your ability to contribute to Roth IRA. For 2024, the total contributions you make each year to all of your traditional IRAs and Roth IRAs is limited to the smaller of $7,000 ($8,000 if you're age 50 or older) or your taxable compensation for the year.
On Turbo tax and the IRS site both say that Roth IRA is affected due to income size. It limits the income to 10,000 if you are filing separately and have lived together. So how to tell if you lived together legally? Please also let me know where to find this information in the tax code.
If you lived together in your mom's house for any amount of time, then yes you would be ineligible to contribute to a Roth IRA if your income is at least $10,000. However, you can do a backdoor Roth, which means you'd contribute to a traditional IRA and then convert to a Roth.