I noticed that the --exclude-vcs-ignores flag doesn't exactly match the same files that git matches when it uses it's .gitignore file.
If I have an line like the following in my .gitignore:
/.ignoreMe/
Then, it seems like tar fails to ignore that folder. Variations like "/.ignoreMe" or ".ignoreMe/" don't seem to work either. Only ".ignoreMe" works. However, the slashes are useful to ensure that you only ignore such a file/folder in the current top-level direction (that's what the first slash does), and that it only ignores a folder with that name, not a file (that's what the last slash does).
Would it be possible to make tar ignore in the same way git does?