Upper Darby council voted to start taxing income. Residents are suing to stop it.

Upper Darby residents are suing to block a newly approved local income tax, arguing, once again, that procedural errors invalidate the ordinance.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas, continues a struggle between the Democratic-led council and a group of residents that has persistently raised concerns, and lawsuits, about the board’s adherence to policy.

Many of the recent fights have focused on the board’s push for a new 1% income tax for residents of the township.

“We’re against the earned-income tax. We don’t feel that the elected representatives really gave any explanation other than well, we want your money, we want the revenue,” said John DeMasi, a Drexel Hill Republican who is the lead plaintiff on the suit. “And once again, they’ve made some glaring errors in passing the ordinance.”

Last year the same group of residents successfully blocked Upper Darby’s attempt to approve a 1% earned-income tax, arguing in a lawsuit that the council had improperly passed that ordinance, and another limiting public comment, during a work session of the council rather than a meeting intended to approve policy.

That suit’s success blew a $15 million hole in the township’s approved 2025 budget, forcing the council to approve a new budget in late February.

After enacting the budget last month, Upper Darby Council approved an ordinance intended to enact the 1% earned-income tax in July.

The tax, councilmembers argued, would provide a needed revenue source for the township, helping to keep local property taxes in check or allowing the township to lower them. The tax would be automatically withheld from residents’ paychecks, like state and federal taxes.

In a statement Monday, Upper Darby Mayor Ed Brown said he was disappointed to see yet another lawsuit “from a small group focusing on technicalities, rather than addressing the core sustainability issues in the township.”

“We are confident in the legality of our actions and will strongly defend the Council’s right to implement the EIT as passed,” Brown said.

In the lawsuit, filed without an attorney, the residents argued Monday that the latest attempt to pass the tax violated state statutes.

“I don’t know if it was incompetence or on purpose, but they didn’t enact it properly,” DeMasi said.

The suit claimed that the council incorrectly enacted the tax immediately, failed to correctly repeal prior ordinances, and improperly included language directing courts to interpret the ordinance liberally.

As a result, the suit argued, the entire ordinance should be thrown out.

Despite the lawsuit’s claims that the ordinance was immediately enacted, Brown said the tax was not set to take effect until July.

The anticipated revenue from the tax is not currently factored into the township’s budget. While local officials are likely to try again if it is thrown out, the suit won’t force immediate changes to the township’s spending plans for the year.

Upper Darby officials have been contemplating a new earned-income tax for years, and Brown reiterated in his statement that the income was necessary to maintain township services and that more than 2,000 Pennsylvania municipalities already charged income tax.

“The EIT offers a more sustainable and fair revenue stream that would reduce pressure on property taxpayers and also ensure that certain nonresidents who work within the Township contribute,” he said.